


Fragments

by inK_AddicTion



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe Diamonds, Classism, Corruption, Discrimination, Disembowelment, F/F, Gen, Illnesses, Implied Sexual Content, Pink Diamond's crazy experiments, Read at Your Own Risk, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Relationships, Warnings are put above the chapters, crossposted largely from my tumblr, let me know if i should tag anything else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 75
Words: 78,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8179603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: Short drabbles exploring various ideas and headcanons, now with an index.-74. earth music - Set after Reunited. Yellow ponders recent revelations.75. power cut - My best attempt at canon Pink and Yellow Diamond. What it says on the tin. For anon on tumblr.





	1. Index

  1. Index
  2. Pearl in the wall - Short piece exploring headcanons about White Diamond's pearls.
  3. Reprogrammed - AU in which the Crystal Gems are reintegrated into Homeworld. (Endgame ‘verse)
  4. City girl and country girl - Human AU, WD/PD. They meet again after a while.
  5. Haunting - Set after Pink Diamond's shattering on Earth. PD/WD. Pink’s memory haunts White.
  6. Hers - Polydiamonds. Yellow desires Pink, but Pink is superior to her.
  7. Defective - Set after an escape from Homeworld, during Pearl and Rose's first free experience of Earth.
  8. Imprint - A pearl always remembers her first mistress. Pearl, WD.
  9. Unshattered - AU in which Steven manages to find and heal Pink Diamond's shards.
  10. Starmaps - Blue Diamond is irrevocably linked to Yellow Diamond - no matter how illogical Blue Diamond finds her. BD/YD
  11. Vanity - Jasper/Pink Diamond.Pink Diamond enjoys flattery. Unfortunately, Jasper is not the most eloquent of quartzes.
  12. Left - The aftermath of Pink Diamond's shattering on Earth, as faced by her closest subordinates. PP/Jasper
  13. Photocopy - Pearlrose. White Diamond's pearls are made identical. Rose manages to find one a little different from the rest.
  14. Everyone is happy and no one dies – Steven meets corrupted Rose and Pearl. Pearlrose.
  15. Folklore and fairytales – Pearl is a sacrifice for the goddess Rose Quartz. Pearlrose.
  16. Discovering the earth – Pearlrose. They have different favourite times of the day.
  17. Ruin - Occasionally, Pink Diamond regrets corrupting White Diamond. Occasionally. White/Pink.
  18. Belonging – Pearl kidnaps WD. Alliance ‘verse. Continued in 26.
  19. Emergence - Blue Diamond emerges defective. She discovers that she is not as alone in facing White Diamond's hatred as she thought she was. BD/YD
  20. Crossed wires - Gemswap AU where Blue Diamond was shattered in place of Pink Diamond. Yellow Diamond doesn’t deal with it well. Or, in fact, at all. Polydiamonds.
  21. Cubic zirconia - A story about an “imitation diamond” created to preserve the Authority’s image after Pink’s death. Only the few soldiers that were with her know the truth behind the mimic.
  22. Pearl-fect - A very young Pink Diamond decides to create her first pearl. It’s an experiment which everyone will regret.
  23. This is what you came for – Pearl performs for the Quartzes.
  24. Mercy – Yellow is in need of Blue’s mercy. BD/YD.
  25. Zero-gravity – The Crystal Gems capture YD and her pearl. YP/YD, Polydiamonds.
  26. Unshattered and corrupted – Set as a continuation of fragment 18, belonging. Corrupted!White meets Fixed!Pink on Earth.
  27. Unshattered and corrupted 2 – continuation of the above.
  28. Personality swap – Of Fixed Pink and Corrupted White.
  29. Kept - Pink Diamond emerges defective, White decides to keep her locked away in the hopes of training her to overcome it. WD/PD.
  30. Of mystery pearls - A mysterious girl picked up a pearl she found at a rock show. Three days later, the singing started. Pearl/S.
  31. gemswap -Doug meets Sapphire.
  32. gemswap - Connie visits the gems.
  33. Gemswap - It's Connie's birthday.
  34. thirdwheels and expectations - Pink is confused about the insinuations Blue and Yellow make about the time she spends with White.
  35. ageswap - Young!White from an alternate universe when Pink Diamond is the eldest runs away with her young counterpart Pink. PD/WD.
  36. steps - Fixed!Pink Diamond starts making amends. (All dialogue)
  37. mud and therapy- Corrupt!White struggles along the path of recovery with Jasper. Set as part of fragment 26/7.
  38. worry - Pink demands to see Green Diamond. BD/YD. WD/PD
  39. Seduction styles - The Diamonds are in love with random, oblivious gems.
  40. Of dolls pale and pink - Pearl reminisces about her relationship with Pink Pearl during a spar. PP/Pearl. Pearlrose. Jaspearl.
  41. Demoted - Pink survives Earth, but later comes to realise that her failure has cost her standing in the eyes of the other Diamonds. PD/WD
  42. Ghosts - Steven manages to fix Pink Diamond's shards, but Pink Diamond brings Rose Quartz's consciousness with her when they reform. The result is an amalgamation. Pearlrose, slight Pinkrose, Pink/Pearl.
  43. Of fusions - Short prompts from tumblr about the Diamond fusions.
  44. Shorts - Short prompts from tumblr.
  45. 8KX, 3TN, Tourmaline - Some shorts from the perspective of Moonstones 3TN and 8KX, of the three moonstones in Of Pearls and Half Truths. Contains slight nsfw.

  46. My Demons, Starset - Song prompt. Corrupted White.

  47. Headstrong Trapt - Song prompt, Orange Diamond and White. Warning, dubcon.
  48. Opalised - Pink Diamond emerged with opal inclusions.
  49. afterwards - After a visit from Orange, White, Yellow and Pink relax.

  50. Cough Syrup, Melanie Martinez - Song prompt. Young White Diamond and Brown Diamond. Warning for addiction.

  51. Two pina coladas, Garth Brookes - Song prompt. Pink Diamond faked her own death.

  52. This Kiss, Faith Hill. – Song prompt. White/Pink.

  53. . I will not bow, Breaking Benjamin - Song prompt. Pink vs Cyan.

  54. Better dig two, the Band Perry - Song prompt. Pink/White. White makes a declaration.

  55. Last Resort, Papa Roach – Song prompt. Pink Diamond prepares to do something drastic to stop the rebellion.

  56. Had Enough, Breaking Benjamin - Song prompt. Yellow Zircon uses Blue Zircon.

  57. soulless - Soulmark AU. Pink dies.
  58. Agnes, Glass Animals - song prompt, Bellow Diamond.
  59. timetravel - Diopside prepares to travel back in time.
  60. stop- Blue warns Pink off Yellow.
  61. Dancing when the stars go blue, Tim McGraw -Song prompt. Blue Zircon teaches Yellow Zircon how to dance.
  62. DREAMER - Dreamer, a prehistoric jade from the Diamond Wars, awakens early from a bad prophetic dream.
  63. Sleepsong - The fusion of Pink and Blue seeks a lullaby from White Diamond.
  64. festival - It is festival-time, and the Diamonds have come together to celebrate. polydiamonds.
  65. the witch - "lepetitmonstre-front said: "Either we're open about this or I'm ending it" white & yellow diamond." Harry Potter AU whellow: Yellow finds an Arithmancy teacher. warnings for bullshit maths terms, infidelity, sexual references and teacher-student relationships.
  66. of softness - Blue and White have been fused since before Pink's birth to deal with the rebel threat. A moment of celebration causes them to lose control. Polydiamonds. Anon asked what would have to happen for Cyan to hug someone.
  67. monster's mourning- Pink is dead. Blue and White deal with the pain - together. Even monsters may mourn.
  68. discretion advised - Candyfloss/Cyan "It's hard to believe you actually care about me when you're hell-bent on your friends not finding out about us!" Anon prompt on tumblr. Modern AU.

  69. bedsharing - "Anonymous said: Pink is gunna need a bigger bed to fit both Black and Ivory." Pink/Black/Ivory.
  70. travelling to earth – Topaz and Aquamarine, on the way to Earth for the first time.
  71. five times - Five times White Diamond kissed Blue Diamond, and one time Blue kissed White.

  72. empress - Tarot card prompt from tumblr. Orange Diamond in the aftermath.
  73. earth music - Set after Reunited. Yellow ponders recent revelations.
  74. power cut -My best attempt at canon Pink and Yellow Diamond. What it says on the tin. For anon on tumblr.



 


	2. pearl in the wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short piece exploring headcanons about White Diamond's pearls.

There are whispers in the walls.

Tiny, fleeting kisses, bare press of lips to hollow cheeks and strong fingers and scraped knobbly knees. These whispers are as impossible to notice as those little fragments of empathy.

The pearls here all have scraped knees.

Tiny scraped knees, and big round blue eyes, and soft little giggles that hide the fact that they well know why Mistress keeps so many hundreds of identical pearls.

There are cracks in the walls.

Fallen sisters, loved dearly but too slow to leap aside just that fatal once, hidden. Mistress is diamond-strong, and she tries very hard to be careful but accidents happen and pearls are little and breakable. It’s supposed to be part of their charm. They’re used to it enough that layers of nacre can be applied, gently over the course of many years, to seal up the crack and made it look like it never happened. They’re never quite the same. But they’re alive.

There are flashes in the walls.

Holographic projections, a silent sign language of pictures and silence and secrets when the palace is alive and bustling, and a single whisper through the walls breaks the secret stolen little hideaway they etch for themselves, pressed hip to skinny hip in the pitch dark spaces between the walls.

Everyone wonders how White Diamond’s pearls can move through the palace so quickly and undetectably.

They have their own sounds for one another whispered in secret in the reserved click of two perfectly oval gems resting against one another. They are not names, for the pearls don’t recognise themselves as separate, as individuals - but there is the-pearl-that-likes-talking-with-quartzes, there is the-pearl-that-paints-Mistress’-face, there is the-pearl-that-climbs-fastest. Tiny fragments of individuality that become the whole revolving centres of their lives.  


There are pearls in the walls.

They hide there when Mistress’ Pink Diamond is shattered. They hide there and they shake and shiver with their identical round blue eyes and their shaking knocked knees and their tiny fidgeting wrists. They hide there because one of their own helped, helped and doomed them all, as if they were all complicit in the plot.

The little pearls hide in the walls. It doesn’t save them.

The whispers turn to screams, and the place of stolen safety becomes a quiet, deathly graveyard.

There is nothing but shards in the walls.


	3. reprogrammed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU in which the Crystal Gems are reintegrated into Homeworld.

Amethyst sprawled nonchalantly over the smooth steps that led up to dais on which Blue Diamond's impressive throne sat; there was an intricate trellis of Gem metalwork casting long striped lines of shadow over her dark cloak and hood. The trellis reminded Amethyst of the scalloped edges and sweeping lines of a river swollen with rain during the monsoon periods back on Earth.

_Earth_. The thought almost came without a sting of loss. She was becoming acclimatised to a life of being Blue Diamond's bad-tempered, stunted dog, whose lashing whip made physical the cut of her Diamond's disapproval, but the faded memory of the gem she'd once been still ached sometimes. 

The main court chambers were structured like honeycomb; finely-cut uppercrust gems circulated slowly through the tiers, all visible from Blue Diamond's vantage point atop her throne. Water rushed down carven lips to deep still pools at either side of her, an instant weapon and threat if needed, and also a discreet background murmur to hide the splashes that the movement of her hidden hydraulic exoskeleton caused.  

Blue Diamond's life, and her court, were all carefully layered, gauzy secrets, piled up on top of each other until they formed a thick dark weave - a tapestry of rumours and hidden things. 

Even Mop, standing still and perfect beside Amethyst, was no doubt scanning the courtiers for the slightest betrayal of a tangled spiderweb of secret under her mat of powder hair. She'd report to Blue Diamond later, as would Amethyst.

In the centre of the palace of whispers, the peridot stuck out like a sore, arrogantly green thumb. She was unusually fine for a peridot, the spring green of her skin dappled the colour of pine under the canopy by the dim blue light, the gem on her forehead clear and bright. Her limb enhancements were nearly silent as she clunked about, and she moved with a decorum that suggested a far more aristocratic gem than a lowly technician. 

Privately, Amethyst applauded herself. She was getting better at this little game. 

"Look," she said, nearly silently, and yanked at Mop. The little pearl's body bent and jerked like a paper doll, and Amethyst internally winced. She always half-expected Mop to resist, the way Pearl would have done.

_Pearl_. Another thing Amethyst usually avoided thinking about. She knew, logically, that Pearl hadn't been shattered, and that Blue Diamond had had no reason to lie to her when she'd informed Amethyst that Pearl's reprogramming had been successful and that she'd been accepted by a new mistress. But it still felt like the Pearl Amethyst had known was dead and gone. She dreaded seeing ever Pearl again even as she desperately hoped that she would.

Amethyst wasn't sure what she wanted to see, if she ever did find Pearl again in the labyrinthine structure of Homeworld society. A pretty doll like Mop? A fiery, broken renegade?

Mop didn't respond to Amethyst, as was expected, but her head was turned in the direction of the peridot long after Amethyst had turned away. She had more patience than Amethyst did. 

Mop tapped Amethyst's shoulder, and whispered in a voice so soft Amethyst wasn't quite sure if she'd heard her or simply thought the words, "Era One, Baroque." 

Amethyst struggled to keep the sudden leap of excitement hidden. She carefully looked where Mop was, and saw again the peridot, her finely combed hair shining like individual strands of coppery wire. It took her some time of staring before her eyes made use of the shadows and she was able to discern a lean shadow hovering obediently behind the peridot, the faint lustre of the pearl on her forehead refracting the light into a series of glossy gleams over the surface. 

A peridot! With a pearl! Well, at least that explained why the peridot looked so well-maintained, and why she seemed tutored enough in comportment to appear in Blue Diamond's court. 

Era One pearls were rare, and especially baroques in that style. There had been thousands of them during the boom of White Diamond's power during the first era, until Pink Diamond had been shattered and the pearls followed. All of the pearls that remained in that style were  dismissed from White Diamond's service and regifted long ago. Save one.  

What were the chances that this was Pearl? 

"Well?" Amethyst demanded, urgently, and she thought Mop smiled, faintly.

"She looks happy," the pearl in the service of Blue Diamond whispered. "Her peridot takes good care of her." 

Amethyst stared into the darkness until her eyes burned, and wondered if she hoped that Pearl had found peace in servitude, like she had. 

There were worse fates. 


	4. city girl and country girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Human AU.

If it was a dream, White Diamond never wanted to wake up. 

There was roughened skin under her lips, flushed scarlet where her pearlescent teeth had worried it ripe and red. Her tongue had traced skin rubbed as dry and hard as cracked leather, her broad nose had pressed flat to smell the musky, earthen scent beaten into every pore of Pink's sun-browned, earth-touched skin. There was dirt under her fingernails, raggedly hewn off, and a whiteish scar from a careless hand with a sharp edge on a plough fading over her forearm. White had learned it already with a thousand kisses, mapping the unfamiliar bumps and shapes of Pink's new life on a frame that still recalled their past together.

Pink smiled amid warm brown wrinkles, her teeth white and bright in her face, and her reddish hair still faded dyed pink at the very tips. She caught White's smooth pale face between her roughened hands and kissed her, making a soft noise of delighted surprise when White rolled the ball of her tongue piercing over Pink's lip.  

White's eyeliner was smeared in messy streaks down her face from all of the tears she'd shed, and her black clothes were splattered from the gritty London rain, stinking of exhaust fumes and sewage Thames water. Pink, open rolling meadows and summery noons, was a world apart from her, but that was nothing new. 

"You're here," said White, a little breathlessly when they parted, and she couldn't stop herself from touching Pink - her cheeks, her sparkling smile, the sweep of her neck and her proud shoulders, just to make sure that she was real and physical. 'You're back,' whispered unsaid, and Pink beamed as if it washed away the hurts that had driven them so far apart - one to the depths of the smog-locked cityscape, the other to the sunlit woods of deep countryside. It didn't. But it was good enough to pretend.

"Of course," she laughed.

If it was a dream, it was a torturous one. Some gaps were impossible to bridge. Better to let White not remember at all the taste of Pink's lips than to remind her that she would never know them again.


	5. haunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after Pink Diamond's shattering on Earth.

“You’ve won the battle,” said the ghost, the smile in her voice twisted and vicious, “You may have won the war. But you’re never going to be able to pick up the pieces again.”

White Diamond closed her eyes and allowed herself a slow, measured breath. She smoothed out her hair, shook free her cape, and resettled her epaulettes. There were thick curves of black still streaked in the pitfalls and shadows of her form. A remnant from Black Diamond, their fusion. Corruption left… scars. They would fade eventually. White wore the marks of their victory with pride. In her hand, a telling betrayal, a tiny sliver of sharp hard pink rested, glowing ruddy-red beside her pale skin.

“Look at you.” The ghost slipped around behind her, and White sucked in an almost painful breath as a phantasmagorical touch, sweet as a butterfly’s wing, caressed the back of her neck. “Tainted, corrupted thing.” An insubstantial hand swept up under her jaw and took hold of her chin, jerking it firmly upwards.

White fixed her eyes on the ceiling and pretended that she was ignoring it all. Those butterfly-kisses whispered over her neck with a memory of mocking laughter.

“Look at you, letting this happen to you. Look at you. What would your subordinates say, if they could see you now? Submissive, compromised creature, aching so badly to hear my voice again that you’d drive yourself mad and go gladly. Like a pearl pining for her mistress. Pathetic.”

White didn’t respond. It was safer. Her breathing was growing ragged, her heart felt like it was being squeezed through a vacuum. Unwittingly, she clenched her fists. The ghost’s slender fingers wrapped around her hand and prized it open with deceptive strength, butterfly-trails gleaming faded rose out of the corner of her eyes. The ghost’s fingers touched the sharp edge of the gem shard in her hand with a cruel tenderness.

She swallowed. White thought that perhaps she shuddered. The ghost laughed, low and quiet and almost sensual.

“Oh, White. Foolish, sweet lover of mine,” the ghost crooned, “Do you dream of me, on your rest cycles, surrounded by the ashes of your pearls? Do you feel me under your fingertips when you reach for a screen? Do you hear me in your ear when the wind whistles through your halls?” She chuckled again. “Do you taste-”

White’s fist closed abruptly around the diamond shard, careful not to shatter it further, hard enough that Pink’s shattered sharp edges sliced through her left hand underneath, and a greyish black substance welled up, tinted with blueish ichor. The cost of corruption. Tainted blood. It would pass, eventually.

The ghost popped into thousands of swirling white butterflies, swarming around her like a hurricane. White exhaled, and rigorously crushed each errant thought until her mind was as cold and sharp as ice once more.

Then she replaced the gauntlet on the hand that had held the shard, and slipped it safely back into her pocket.

It hurt White Diamond to remember the sound of Pink Diamond’s voice. It hurt more to think of forgetting it.


	6. hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Polydiamonds.

Yellow Diamond had accepted, with every visible sign of grace, that Pink Diamond was not, and would never be, hers to touch.

It was obvious; Pink Diamond had been formed perfect, completely and utterly flawless, therefore quite above the hideous, defective mess of Yellow and Blue Diamonds’ monstrous conjoined birth. If there was anything that White Diamond had hammered into her weak, fledgling Diamond subordinates, it was that the circumstances of their unfortunate birth and the defects they carried in their gemstones made them eternally and substantially lesser than a perfect Diamond like White.

And who could blame her? White’s voice alone trembled with power, and it’s lyrical strain could bend the knee and capture the heart of any and every gem, defective or not, rebellious or not, corrupted or not.

Pink, visibly, had that same enchanting, manipulative quality. When she spoke, the air around her seemed to pound and thrum, and too long in her company made Yellow’s heart fiery with fervour, hot itches of a need to prove herself she thought she had abandoned at the foot of the first of White’s many callous rejections surface stronger than ever. Unlike White, Pink did not use it to subjugate and batter down, to whip away at every defence and flay her subjects bare. Pink used it to sneak into hearts, bewitching minds, altering senses, manipulating and threading her puppets together like toys on a string.

It was with that stealthy, silent compromising of the toughest emotions that Yellow had watched Pink use against White, the oldest and strongest of the Authority, creeping in the cracks and corners of White and filling her up like smoke, whittling away at her foundations until Yellow knew that she only remained upright at Pink’s desire. She recognised it well. Blue had done the same thing to her once, when they were both newly formed, full of hate for the world that hated them, bitter and loveless under the barrage of White’s abuse; Blue had crept in to her hollow places and softened them with the implacable course of smoothing river water until the channel ran deep and fast, and she had earned all of Yellow’s stubborn loyalty.

For what it was worth, anyway. Yellow did have to admit that their defects complimented well. Blue was stunted, her stretched out limbs as weak as a baby bird’s, and she was reduced to her gem at the barest impact. Her admittedly impressive array of gem powers such as shape shifting, weapon summoning and the control of water, allowed her to utilise a hydrokinetic exoskeleton to compensate for her physical weakness. Yellow, on the other hand, was useless at any gem ability save forming, but equalised it with a powerful projection that could withstand the toughest of White’s beatings.

Put together, they almost made the equal of a full Diamond. Almost being the operative word.

Pink and White, however, needed no such prop or teamwork. For all their defects, Yellow and Blue had learned to cooperate relatively well. But evidently, Pink was dissatisfied with the prize of White Diamond’s emotionally compromised allegiance.

And Yellow knew that because otherwise, Pink would not be here, in the golden-studded, lime-glowing centre of Yellow’s corner of their empire, the furling embrace of her nature creeping slowly up the walls as surely as the disturbing spread of organic life that seemed to both parts grow and wither in her presence. The bubbly, pink haired quartz experiment she’d brought along with her had already taken off to bother Yellow’s pearl - “Rose has a peculiar fondness for them”, Pink had explained, with a twinkle in her eye - and they were, quite uncomfortably, utterly alone.

“I want you to touch me like you touch Blue Diamond when you are pretending that no one can observe you,” said Pink Diamond, straight to the point and deeply intense, as usual.

Flustered (and trying to deny it), Yellow fidgeted with the cuff of her sleeve and said, “Blue and I don’t-”

“One of White’s pearls has a full video complete with audio of a particular tryst behind a wall hanging, you are both neither subtle nor apparently, quiet,” Pink interrupted flatly.

Yellow allowed herself a moment of brief surprise. That was a rather… odd thing for one of White’s pearls to record. What use would White have for documenting such a thing? She already knew that Yellow and Blue were defective, unless White found some hitherto unknown voyeuristic tendency - though it wasn’t as if it was outside of her power to simply command that a show was given for her, if she wished it.

Perhaps for Pink, then. Looking up into the brilliant, bright eyes of the youngest, most beloved Diamond, childish and ridiculous as she seemed at times, Yellow could well imagine her finding some obscure blackmail for such a thing.

She was buying time, she knew. “You realise,” said Yellow, slowly, “That I am not White Diamond. I am… flawed.” It cut down to the gemstone to admit it so openly.

Pink’s smile shimmered. “I’m aware,” she said, and approached Yellow on her throne anyway, despite Yellow’s nervous (and unnecessary) gulp. “White has told me that your physical projection is exceptionally strong. Capable of enduring… the harshest treatment.” She drew close and took hold of one of Yellow’s hands, curiously bending the fingers back until they threatened to snap before smoothing them back down with a gentle pat. “I’m looking forward to having a partner who I do not have to be afraid of breaking.”

She smiled a little, sympathetic and sweet and gentle and soft, and Yellow’s heart gave an irregular thump against her ribs, if she had a heart, if she had ribs. “Do not have to be as afraid,” she corrected.

Strong as Yellow was, she still was overpowered by a flawless Diamond.

“I’m not White Diamond,” repeated Yellow with a rising panic, feeling embarrassment sheet her cheeks gold. She wanted to turn her face and hide it, but Pink’s stare pinned it, like a hawk curiously surveying a bug pinned to a tree. She trailed the tip of her finger along Yellow’s hot cheek.

“I know-”

Yellow cut her off, and Pink’s eyebrows raised a little before she grinned. “I am unable - I cannot - I will be unable to do some of the things she no doubt does for you.”

“I know that your gem is useless,” said Pink, ignorant of the way her words fell like acid. “I don’t care.” She eyed Yellow, then slid into her lap, making herself comfortable with the ease of practice and hooking her legs around Yellow’s hips. Yellow almost choked. “Come,” she said, sternly, “We don’t have too much longer before Rose breaks your pearl and comes crying to me to fix it. She doesn’t know her strength, the useless pebble.” She moved straight from complaint to command - a technique no doubt learnt from White, Yellow thought sourly. “Kiss me.”

Yellow pulled away. A storm of frustration flashed in Pink’s eyes. “What is it?” She demanded. “Is this physical form unappealing to you?” She pressed close, soft and warm, and Yellow felt her gemstone press between the softness of Pink’s breasts. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and tried her best not to feel it.

“White Diamond would shatter me if I dared touch you,” she muttered, and Pink paused.

She burst into grandiose, disbelieving laughter, gut-laughter, the sort that shook her entire projection.

“I’ll protect you from White,” Pink asserted, warmly, “I will take you - yes, and Blue as well if you wish it - as mine, and White will have to contest with me if she wants to take issue with you.”

Yellow opened her mouth to say that it didn’t really work that way with Diamonds, even defective and flawed ones, but Pink invaded it instead and Yellow gave it all up as a lost cause. She doubted Pink gave a damn that Yellow and Blue were technically autonomous co-rulers, not hers to claim.

Idly, she wondered if Blue would have an objection to this. Would she be jealous, as Pink pulled back and giggled at the bronze gold blush on Yellow’s cheekbones - “Cute. Do you bleed the same colour, I wonder?” -? Yellow doubted it. Blue treated any emotion like a sickness she could cure by completely ignoring its existence.

But Pink - Pink murmured little compliments as she went that came out like it meant nothing, but Yellow’s heart seized and stuttered at each quiet, “Good”, “Lovely”, “Yes, perfect”. White had never spoken in such soft, sweet terms, and Pink had always made it easy for others to admire her.

Bitterly, she cursed herself for a fool. Even if Pink had decided that Yellow was hers to touch, Yellow was under no illusions that Pink was hers to love.


	7. defective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after an escape from Homeworld, during Pearl and Rose's first free experience of Earth.

“I’m just a pearl!” Pearl shouted, her hands clenched into fists, spraying flecks of spittle, but she didn’t care anymore - there was mud on her pretty flimsy skirt, half-ripped, and the rain had made bedraggled messes of them both, but at least it hid her tears. “I’m - I’m not made for this! I never wanted this! I never wanted some - some stupid defective Quartz to, what, _kidnap me?_! Stars!” Pearl dragged her hands down her cheeks. “You were barely even a good lay! I’ve had better from _Peridots!”_

Rose flinched at every word, and already her eyes welling up with tears again, but she still stubbornly said, “There’s nothing _just_ about you, Pearl.”

“There you go again!” Pearl’s voice was edged with hysteria. “Yes! I am! I’m a doll, pretty thing, bit of jewelry! Get it through your cracked head that _I’m not like you!_ I belong at my Diamond’s side somewhere nice and clean - not on this mudball with Pink Diamond’s dumb Quartz experiment!”

“You like it here,” said Rose simply, and she didn’t understand, Pearl saw that she didn’t, because her frown was all twisted up and she was biting her lip nervously. “You like it here. You like me, even if you pretend that you don’t because I cry too much and I get lost and I forget that my own strength sometimes.” 

She stepped hesitantly closer, the mud squelching up between her bare toes, and then sank to her knees and took hold of Pearl’s hands, sweet face ever-earnest, and Pearl wanted to scream at her because this was _wrong wrong wrong,_ and Quartzes didn’t kneel for pearls - “I know I’m different, Pearl, but it’s not a bad thing. You can be different too, here. White Diamond isn’t here to watch anymore.” She smiled brightly as if this solved everything. “I can get you back to White Diamond if you want. But only if you want. You… you could stay here. With me. But… I want _you_ to choose. Why don’t you?”

“Because _I’m defective!”_ Pearl screamed, and shook. “I’m _defective.”_

Rose looked stricken. “No-!” she started to say, but Pearl cut her off.

“I’m defective,” she said miserably. “I want to stay with you. Being with you - Rose. _Rose._ You make me feel like I’m everything, like I can be _more._ But I can’t, because I’m just a pearl, and trying to be anything else, _wanting_ to be anything else, makes me _defective._ And if there’s anything more useless than a pearl without a mistress, it’s a _defective_ pearl.”


	8. imprint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first piece of SU writing exploring the organic nature of pearls. Uses mostly outdated headcanons.  
> -  
> A pearl always remembers her first mistress.

Gems come into being knowing their life’s purpose, and from the moment their summoned forms coalesce around their gem, they are ready to do their duty. It is also a common belief that pearls aren’t really  _ gems. _

The oyster-room is muffled in a deep, dark, womblike silence. Water can be heard, lapping quietly against the smoothed lips of the great tubs, as can the near silent pad of the attending lapis lazulis’ feet on the metal grate walkways. The walkways are suspended over the massive, ovular tubs, weaving like recumbent steel snakes through the unrelenting pregnant darkness.

The air tastes of mould and damp, humid and sticky. There is a suggestion of slickness on the drainage platforms surrounding the incubating tubs, from thousands of layers of nacre oozing off the bodies of newly hatched pearls, splattering the floors until they too form a slippery shell. Dimly, the mottled pale tubs gleam wetly with intermittent pulses, like the throb of juvenile hearts.

These are the tubs in which pearls are made, each layer of their gem designed and layered carefully together by the attending lazulis controlling the waters in which the pearls are grown. When the pearl is ready, the oyster is broken open by the attending lazulis, and the pearl takes form and leaves the tub, ready to serve. The lazulis must be ever vigilant, as occasionally early bloomers can be trapped inside the oysters in which they are grown and attempt to take form anyway, shattering their own fragile gems inside the small space. 

Pearls are expensive and time-consuming to make, and it is a rare customer who can afford to have a pearl exclusively designed, grown and hatched just for them instead of recycled from an old pearl whose mistress has been shattered, or from a pearl gem shard. However, the  _ best  _ pearls are the ones that are hatched for one mistress only. 

It is a little known secret, after all, that a pearl’s first imprint never truly fades, and an informed pearl owner takes care to be present at the first emergence of their future servants - that is, of course, providing they can stomach the oyster-room with its wet darkness, the objective hideousness of an emerging pearl, and the quiet amusement of the lazulis well aware that  _ this  _ is no simple, earthy kindergarten, scoffing at the horrorstruck and unprepared owners.

White Diamond has owned her fair share of pearls in her time and been present at every hatching, but she still forces back a shudder as her hair brushes the sticky walls of the oyster-room. It would be undignified to duck, she reminds herself sternly. It would also be undignified to squirm as she feels a drip of sticky nacre slide slowly down the back of her neck, under the collar of her pristine white coat, but that does not make it any easier.

This particular oyster-room is custom-built to White Diamond’s tastes, and therefore should really be tall enough to allow her to walk upright and confidently after the lazuli, but somehow it never quite is. White Diamond suspects Blue Diamond. 

Her sister Diamonds also grow their pearls here, and White Diamond would not put it past Blue Diamond to order the ceiling lowered, just enough that White Diamond and Yellow Diamond with their distinctive spiked hair struggle to pass through. As for Pink Diamond, well,  _ Pink  _ is the sort of gem who would crouch down, would  _ crawl, _ to protect her marvellous quiff of extravagantly candyfloss hair. But Pink Diamond has always been a little different.

White Diamond’s pearl is grown in the tub that all of White Diamond’s pearls have been grown in. It has noticeably less nacre solidified on the sides than Yellow Diamond’s, which is on the platform over. White Diamond prefers to not waste resources crafting new pearls every time one of them makes the tiniest of mistakes, and also unlike Yellow Diamond, she likes to design each pearl a little differently. After all, White Diamond is the one who will have to look at the pearl the most, she may as well pick something different from last time.

Opposite the tub, a solid white throne waits, grey in the dimness, and White Diamond breathes a silent sigh as she sits, waiting until the lazuli leaves before she fixes her hair. A Diamond must keep up appearances, after all. Then, with the immoveable patience White Diamond is known for, she settles in to wait.

Deep inside the tub, the pearl begins to glow. Tentatively, the consciousness within searches, and slowly begins to take a shape that feels right. Thin, long arms. Thin, long legs. Thin, long nose. Eyes sealed shut from the nacre, hair plastered down against the skull, oozing clear white liquid. Thin, long fingers, twitching and spreading. Bones pressed up against near translucent skin, cerulean veins pulsing underneath, eyes bulging under the lids, flickering from side to side. 

The pearl kicks experimentally, the water around her thin little body crushing and dark. Her eyes are still glued closed, but they were only constructs anyway, and the pearl follows her instinct. She flails in the water until the water gives way and there is water that feels cold and clear and nothing like water, hands and feet scrabbling at the smooth lip of the tub. Sensation touches the pearl’s skin for the first time, cold damp air, drips of nacre and water running off her body as she lurches out of the skin of the water, mouth opening to take the first breath of air. A harsh squawk of surprise croaks out without her permission, fluttering vocal cords testing.

No matter how many times White Diamond sees this sight, she imagines that she will never quite get used to it, or the nausea it conjures. A lurching skeleton piercing the thick, soupy skin of the water, globules of nacre oozing like oil and water off the narrow shoulders, hair plastered every which way around the prominent gem sticking out of the forehead, blazing still as the pearl drags her half-formed body, hand after wet slapping hand, out of the tub. The pearl  _ shrieks,  _ and White Diamond would have jumped, if she wasn’t White Diamond, so instead she smiles faintly and says, “I can tell you’re going to be a beautiful singer, little one.”

Of course she will, White Diamond knows this already, because she ordered this pearl to be an adept singer and dancer. White Diamond likes pearls to have more than one use. Ironic, almost, that the prettiest gems of Homeworld are formed in such hideous ways, but pearls are never really considered  _ gems. _

The pearl hears the voice through ears half-blocked with nacre, and shakes her head in an effort to dislodge it, spraying her surroundings with more of the stuff. Boldly, she squirms up against the tub and suddenly loses her balance, toppling right out in an ungraceful flail of awkward limbs. The voice chuckles. The metal grating is cold, but solid, and the pearl pulls at nascent memories, patting at her body and rolling sideways until she is on her knees. 

Then, wobbling like a colt, she stands up for the very first time, her sodden clothes pressed close to her skin, and directionless for a moment, sways there. Then the voice speaks again. “Come here,” it says, and the pearl does as she is told, every step increasing in confidence when her legs don’t betray her.

It is her first command, and the resonation of it runs through her like a drumbeat. She picks up her pace, grace overtaking her on instinct, and almost pirouettes the last two steps before she hits a solid barrier, soft and dry. Puzzled, the pearl pats the strange material, then tilts her head up and tries to open her eyes. The nacre holds them shut.

A large hand closes around the back of her dress and lifts her. The pearl’s legs kick, surprised by her sudden flight, but barely a moment later she is dropped into a lap, and a gentle fingertip smoothes the nacre on her eyelids away with a feather-light touch. Gentleness, as the pearl will come to know, is present in every interaction she will ever have with her Diamond. White Diamond is ever careful with her tiny, fragile pearls, treating them as if they were spun from fractals of glass.

The pearl opens her eyes, and then screws them shut instantly. Everything is so very bright! And she can hear running water as the tub drains, and white light soft and insistent against her eyelids. 

“Open your eyes,” White Diamond prompts. “Look at me, little one.”

The pearl does, because she has been ordered to, and pearls are made to obey. The face that looks back at her is bigger than hers, and pale all over, and her eyes are sharp and hard, just like the diamond on her forehead. The pearl shivers in innocent awe and wonder. 

“I own you,” says White Diamond.  _ “You. Obey. Me.” _

The pearl nods frantically. Yes! Of course. The pearl knows already that she loves her mistress. It is written in her gem. She has no choice. She turns her small head into White Diamond’s huge palm when White Diamond lifts her hand, cupping her head to hold her still, and feels tears well up and run when White Diamond leans forward and kisses her gem, very carefully, deeply aware that a single wrong movement could shatter the little pearl in an instant.

“Perfect,” she says, and the pearl flushes.

Bravely, she wobbles onto her knees, clutches the lapels of White Diamond’s coat, and stretches up as far as she can to return the favor, kissing the cold surface of White Diamond’s gem for barely half a second before a large hand pushes her away. 

White Diamond stares at her in disbelief. To dare touch a Diamond’s gem!? In hindsight, White Diamond would realise that this was the moment that should have tipped her off all along that this particular little pearl wouldn’t be like the other little pearls, and that this little pearl would cause an insurmountable amount of trouble, that this little pearl would become the  _ Renegade,  _ but White Diamond is not Yellow Diamond, and she believed in forgiving tiny mistakes.

“I will let you go because you’re approximately three minutes and forty-six seconds old,” White Diamond says dryly, “But if you  _ dare  _ touch my gem without permission again I will shatter you and have your shards sent to Yellow Diamond for her bizarre fusion experiments, are we clear?”

The pearl nods quickly, blushing in shame. The weight of her Diamond’s disappointment, earned so early, falls like hammer blows. White Diamond pats her cheek. “Sing for me, little doll,” she commands, and the pearl lifts her head, eager to win back her approval.

She opens her mouth and picks words she half-knows, finding the thread of a tune and making it up as she goes. She is good at that, the pearl knows. Finding words, finding melodies. 

Later, she will become good at many other things. Some of them, her Diamond would smile in approval at. Some of them, her Diamond would make good her threat. But by then, Pearl will be far beyond her reach. Pearl was built for diamonds, but she learns to settle with quartzes, with fighting, with fusions and grit and blood and sweat, with  _ Earth.  _ The pearl becomes Pearl, the Renegade, and leaves every chain and link of her past behind.

It is a lesser known secret that a pearl’s first imprint never really fades, and Pearl comes to hate surrounding herself with running water and white light, hates the servile calm it gives her, hates that she can’t quite cut herself  _ wholly  _ free of what she used to be.

Gems, after all, are born knowing their life’s purpose, and everyone who matters knows perfectly well that pearls are gems, too.


	9. unshattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU in which Steven manages to find and heal Pink Diamond's shards.

The cavern dripped, cold and wet, water slicking off long-smoothened walls of compacted mud. Stalagmites towered in thick, warty pillars as thick abreast as a lion into the silent, damp darkness; the air clung close with the inescapable dry reek of cave mould and stagnant water.

A touch of colder breeze whispered in from the far distant split in the earth, a gaping mouth yawning open from the command of her force. Shattered rock and gravel scattered the hazy, lit circle of the entry, fresh and raw death in a mausoleum of forgotten skeletons, rotted away to dust.  

Thousands of years ago, this had been a place of majesty and strength, a foothold of her power. Centuries of neglect and warfare had buried it under close, sinking mud. Of her throne, nothing remained but a lumpy twist of rock humping jaggedly out of one wall - underneath, she could feel the once clean, sharp lines of it bowed wearily under the weight of thousands of years of shifting earth. Of her servants, nothing but dust and the whisper of once-spoken echoes.

Pink Diamond stood in the earthen remnants of her throne room, half hunched to allow for the ceiling's decreased height. Mud showered her shoulders and soiled her hair, traced ugly earthy tracks over her skin and stuck to her, unpleasantly, like a death shroud.

To think, this tiny planet had once represented such freedom to her. 

Tentatively, she shuffled, bent double like a cripple, well aware of the structural weaknesses forming in the ancient gem stonework that had been the most impressive fortress on Earth - initially covered in a thick rocky shell by Pink's own power, now imprisoned by it and steadily cracking under the weight. A single misplaced knock, and the whole structure could crash down.

Pink touched her gemstone, the ugly, warped scars still ridging through it, distorting her. Her fortress wasn't the only thing on the brink of collapse. She was fragile still, and every bump or brush sent electric jolts of pain through her projected form. She was just lucky that the Rose Quartz child had been foolish enough to heal her shattered gem. Pathetic thing that it had made her, nothing more than a bargaining chip against Homeworld.

Would her sisters allow Earth to survive as long as Pink was held hostage here? Pink simultaneously hoped they would and hoped they wouldn't. She didn't want to be dead again. On some levels, she didn't even want the Rose Quartz child to die - though he had done nothing but repent for his mother's sin. But she couldn't stand the idea of pity in their eyes when they saw the ruin of what Pink had become.

She reached the mud shape of her throne and placed her hand on the damp earth. There was a pause, and Pink struggled, her eyebrows drawing together and a faint, dim glow coming from her nearly cracked gem. 

Eventually, sluggishly, the mud started to flow, twisting like a turgid brackish river and peeling in thick splats into piles beside the clearing throne. Pink had just managed to clear half of the throne when at once she doubled over, gasping in pain. Her hand, smeared with mud, shakily pressed against her gem as if she could hold herself together.

"Pathetic," she tried to say, but it came out like a harsh wheeze. Frustrated tears leaked out of her eyes.

What would White Diamond say, if she saw her beloved perfect Diamond now?

Stripped of dignity, Pink half climbed, half crawled onto the muddy throne, curling around her ugly gemstone. She panted, pressing her cheek against wet cold mud, telling herself the water was from the mud, not from her tears. Useless, ugly, weak Diamond. Flawed. As useless as a piece of cheap zircon.

Breathlessly, Pink rasped a laugh.

Perhaps she should be hoping that White Diamond would simply shatter her, instead of suffering such an embarrassment to the Authority to live. At least it meant that Pink would feel her touch again, however briefly and violently. 

She cringed at her own thoughts. Pathetic! Pathetic! Diamonds were solitary, powerful gems, co-rulers by necessity but keeping to themselves and not inciting argument. Too much contact tended to lead to conflict as they competed with each other. And yet, she thought of the strength in White Diamond's careful touch with longing, craved the protective martial power that flashed in her eyes and the snap of her long cloak. It would be familiar. Safe. 

Earth was corrupting her, surely. She knew the Rose Quartz child was keeping her from her Moon Base in order to keep her from contacting the other Diamonds until Pink Diamond had allowed herself to be indoctrinated by the defective Crystal Gems. She had told herself that it wouldn't happen. And yet, look at what she had become.

"Fake," she whispered through cracked lips to the cold cave air, touching her ruined gemstone in the ruins of her throne room, the ruins of her first colony clustered oppressively damp around her.

As if in answer, the ground shook. Pink Diamond weakly lifted her head, knowing that her exertion in moving the earth had doomed her to be buried if the whole roof crashed down. She simply didn't have the energy to move. Somewhere distant, a familiar roar, somewhat panicked, split the sky. 

Pink Diamond smiled faintly, humourless, and let her head be pillowed once more on the arm of her throne as suddenly, the entrance's light was eclipsed by a huge, shaggy shape. The corrupted gem moved diffidently underground, pushing her spiky orange belly into the ground like a dog creeping away from an abusive master. The ragged fluff of white hair and hideous malachite-green spikes and swollen spires of corruption gave the corrupted quartz a lurching, houndlike look. Her eyes - if she had them - were covered by a floppy fringe of white fur, but she moved unnerringly towards Pink anyway, as if drawn by a sixth sense.

"My perfect Jasper," Pink murmured, with some element of bitterness. 

Jasper snuffled against her dangling hand hopefully, and Pink sighed, lips upturning with the faintest hint of a smile. Graciously, she petted the thick fringe of fur that hung over the beast's face. Instantly, Jasper's gem lit up with a warm, orange glow, and she panted with joy, her tail thumping the floor, just like a dog. 

A little disgusted, Pink withdrew her hand and curled it against herself, idly wishing to remove the faint scent of wet dog that seemed to cling to Jasper and whatever she touched these days. 

"Sit," she instructed, with a voice about as strong as an autumnal leaf, but Jasper instantly obeyed, tongue lolling out of her mouth in animalistic adoration. 

To think, this gem had once been Pink's prize Quartz.

"Look at us both," she whispered thinly to her corrupted Jasper, "The Earth ruins every gem it touches."

Jasper, wholly ignorant of Pink's bitter amusement, tried to lick her face. 

"Jasper!" She hissed, like a rheumatic snake, "Corruption is no excuse for poor comport-"

Jasper was going in again, making happy snuffling noises and muffled barks and grunts in between each attempt. Repulsed, Pink shifted away from the rough tongue, but was too slow to prevent Jasper from catching her right across the cheek.

Horrified, she grimaced and said, with a truly pathetic amount of threat, "Were I at my full strength, I'd be well in my rights to shatter you for that." 

A blunt head nudged her chest, shoving Pink back against her throne and causing a sharp pain to lance through her gem. Gasping in pain, she touched it swiftly, checking it for cracks, sagging in relief at finding it still as whole as before. Jasper strained towards Pink Diamond, tongue rasping out to lick her face as often as she could. Pink, too weak to move, sat there resignedly. Telling Jasper to get off had no effect. 

"I'm not sure that this is what Blue Diamond meant when she said that allowing my Quartzes to know intimate relations with me would lead to them taking liberties further down the line," she said at one point, one spike of her hair plastered unpleasantly to her forehead.

Jasper perked up, the spikes that jabbed from where her eyes ought to be almost puncturing Pink's lung as she nudged Pink again, a little harder this time. 

Through a tight wave of pain, Pink stated flatly at her and said, "It's not me, it's you. You're corrupted. I'd honestly rather let the Crystal Gems' degenerate pearl take me as her bedmate than to allow myself to be rutted by a corrupted beast."

"Harooo," said Jasper.

"Your conversation is as intelligent as it ever was, if not more so," Pink retorted. Jasper whined. "What, you think I allowed you to be taken by me because of your dashing wit? My Jasper, I don't know what to tell you."

They were interrupted by a boyish shout. "Pinky!" The Rose Quartz child bellowed from somewhere. "Jasper! PINKY!"

Heaving an aggravated sigh, Pink genuinely considered bringing down the earthen roof and crushing herself under its weight. 

'Pinky'. A juvenile nickname that made a mockery of Pink Diamond's majesty and greatness, but infinitely better than some of the ones the runty amethyst dreamt up. 

Irritatingly, the fusion was the only one who referred to her with any degree of respect. Even the pearl - though having once served Pink herself! - put on airs and graces around Pink, calling herself "her own gem", and refusing to accept Pink's orders. The lapis lazuli ignored her, and the little peridot (since when did they start making them so... stunted?) had taken one look at her, squeaked, hurried a salute, then disappeared into some human structure never to be seen again by Pink. 

A deeply flawed bunch. She almost pitied them for their defects.

Jasper turned her head towards the Rose Quartz child's shouting, then back towards Pink Diamond, then towards the shouts. She lumbered to her feet, shaggy tail swishing uncertainly.

"I hope you don't expect me to actually go to the Rose Quartz child," Pink Diamond said, insulted, "As if I were some pearl to be summoned and dismissed at the behest of some hybrid-mutant."

Jasper ducked her head and whined quietly. She nudged Pink, delicately.

"No," said Pink, flatly. She couldn't move as it was anyway. If she could have, perhaps she would have got up to go see what the Rose Quartz child wanted. He had a terribly grating voice when distressed.

Jasper nudged her again, then opened her jaws and so gently it felt more like a clasp of a hand than a bite, took Pink's arm between her teeth and pulled. When Pink still didn't move, she pulled again, hard enough that for a moment Pink slid ungracefully over the mud and threatened to fall out of the throne entirely. 

Her persistent Jasper wouldn't give up until she got what she wanted. 

Pink smiled a little, half fondly, mostly tiredly, and bit back her pride. She'd become accustomed to doing that, so accustomed that she barely noticed the bitter sting of it. "You will have to help me walk," she said firmly, and Jasper panted agreeably.

Even locking one arm around Jasper's neck and crawling, leaning heavily on her quartz's strength, was not enough. Humiliated, Pink slumped over, clutching at her useless gem and breathing heavily. Moving the earth had taken a lot out of her, and bitterly, Pink cursed her vanity. Sitting in mud was hardly new. Earth was full of it.

Jasper snuffled in concern, licking her cheek tenderly. Without heat, Pink pushed her flat head away. Jasper swung her head, considering, then slid down on her belly and nudged at Pink, stretching out one thick, fluffy forelimb. The implication was clear.

"Liberties," Pink muttered, but the Rose Quartz child's shouts were growing nearer, and she'd be shattered again before she allowed him to see that she'd put herself in such an exhausted position that she couldn't walk. 

Grabbing thick handfuls of fluffy fur, Pink painstakingly hoisted herself onto Jasper's spiny back. The corrupted beast was too small, really, and Pink had to pull her legs up to stop them dragging on the floor, but Pink was a Diamond and by this point, quite used to being unreasonably tall compared to everything else. 

On Homeworld, everything was built to accommodate the tallest Diamond, on Earth, even the fusion found herself too big for most things. It was an eminently frustrating pattern and one that Pink took as further proof of human incompetence.

Jasper set off with a lurching gait, and Pink was forced to grab hold of her in a rather undignified flail for balance. The tunnel that she had broken open was barely tall enough for her, and so Pink pressed herself down against Jasper's fluffy mane, doing her best to ignore the tang of sea salt under her tongue and the hard, rocky protuberances of the corruption pressing into her form - uncomfortably close to her very tender gem.

'Accidentally shattered whilst riding a corrupted Jasper' was possibly even more humiliating then 'Shattered in battle by the leader of the rebellion, Rose Quartz, on her first colony-planet'. Why did the stars hate her so?

Bounding up the last of the crumbling slope of freshly broken earth, Jasper burst into sunlight, her great spiny head swinging this way and that as she searched for the Rose Quartz child. Painfully, Pink used the momentary reprieve to slowly and awkwardly straighten herself, ruffling the mud out of her hair and off her shoulders, and to sit up, grimacing in pain at the sharp pull in her belly at the slightest movement. She had to stop halfway, breathing heavily through a particularly bad cramp of pain that felt as if it threatened to rip her gem in two. Nausea roiled low and pained inside her gut. 

"Pinky! Jasper!" The Rose Quartz child's joyful shouting penetrated her pain, if only briefly. The mutant-hybrid was running full-tilt towards them, his organic flesh jiggling as he moved. Repugnant creature. But he had saved Pink Diamond's life, and it was only through his continued 'treatments' helping to keep the cracks in her gem glued shut that she retained that life. It would be unstrategic - let alone downright suicidal - to give him the implication that Pink Diamond despised his existence and that of his 'Crystal Gems'. 

She still had the notes she'd used to create Rose Quartz from Earth's kindergartens, anyway - as soon as she had managed to contact her fellow Diamonds, the Crystal Gems had been destroyed and the Earth was under her control once again, she could easily make herself a new one to keep up the ministrations. At least the Crystal Gems' actions in preserving the planet had actually enrichened the resources that had made it such a prime kindergarten planet in the first place. 

"Hybrid-mutant," she greeted, and the Rose Quartz child's smile dropped a little.

"I told you, my name is Steven. What's up with you guys and my name?" The Rose Quartz child complained. 

"Are you not a mutated hybrid between an organic human and a gem?" Pink inquired, self-righteously. "It is your identifier."

"No, my identifier is Steven," the Rose Quartz child said stubbornly. He beamed at Pink Diamond, who peered back at him with a faint lip-curl of disgust. "You'll get there eventually, Pinky, I believe in you."

"...Thank you," said Pink Diamond, slowly and flatly.

"Oh yeah! So - uh, Lapis and Amethyst and me were planning a picnic on the beach and we wondered if you wanted to come too!" The Rose Quartz child bounced on his heels, grinning widely up at her. It was a doltish, vapid sort of smile. Pink Diamond had always privately doubted the level of intelligence reached by the average human.

Pink Diamond stared at him. Restlessly, Jasper lashed her tail and shifted her huge paws. A spray of sodden sand kicked up from her heels and snarled in her fur. She trod a small circle, then pulled yearningly towards the Rose Quartz child. Her opinion was clear.

The Rose Quartz child was looking steadily more uncomfortable. Pink wasn't certain why. Was she supposed to respond to his statement? Carefully, she puzzled through what she knew of Earth courtesy, most of it hastily learned by crouching outside the human structure called barn during a stealthy reconnaissance mission. There was a particular difficulty in hiding oneself when one was a giant pink woman, but Pink Diamond had succeeded. More or less.

"Wow," she said, flatly, "Thanks."

She had remembered his human words! Now, to hope that she had employed the correct usage for the situation. Of course she had - she was an infallible Diamond, she navigated the strange pitfalls of human courtesy with ease and grace. Pink Diamond puffed up with pride. Tact and diplomacy truly worthy of a Diamond. 

"Would you want to? Come that is?" The Rose Quartz child asked earnestly. "You can do whatever you want!"

Pink blinked. "I want to hollow out the Earth to create my own private army in order to crush and shatter all of your friends," she stated, flatly. She considered gravely. The boy had healed her, after all. What finer gift of repayment was there than her presence? Well-pleased with this idea, she conceded, "However, until that point, a 'picnic' will suffice."

"This is gonna be awesome!" the Rose Quartz child enthused. "Pearl _baked-"_

"I'm not touching anything that pearl gives me," Pink Diamond said haughtily. "I know _exactly_  where she's been."

The Rose Quartz child sighed. "Baby steps, Steven. Baby steps."

Jasper whuffed in agreement.


	10. starmaps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains some of my headcanons.   
> -  
> Blue Diamond is irrevocably linked to Yellow Diamond - no matter how illogical Blue Diamond finds her.

Yellow Diamond had always been the most ...emotional... of the Authority. Blue Diamond hadn't claimed to understand her or her often violently mercurial displays, and had shamefully enjoyed the solidarity it gave her with clipped, cold White Diamond, who was as unaffected by life as the wind by war. It had always been safer to agree with White Diamond; disagreement only lead to pain and trouble. After the birth of Pink Diamond, Yellow Diamond's irrational behavior had only been exacerbated now that she had a companion whose tempestuous moods were as powerful and glorious as her own. But even then, Blue Diamond had been misunderstanding and humouring alongside White Diamond, who had taken a deep and true interest in Pink Diamond - agreeing to all manner of things that their youngest desired, even most the most fatal designs of them all.

Now Pink Diamond was gone and White Diamond had all but followed her with a steady, debasing descent into senility and decrepitude that had left her crippled in her throne room, a gasp of the hurricane she had once been.

And Blue Diamond was alone. With Yellow Diamond. 

Blue Diamond was content to keep to herself and rule as she had always done, quietly and commanding absolute, but silent, respect, governing through the manufacturing of deep-seeded mutual loyalty and purpose than any inspiring, devout displays of awesome power. She was not capable of the physical strength of the other Diamonds, but her control of the powers afforded to her by the nature of her gemstone were finely honed and utterly controlled, just like her own mind. To Blue Diamond, there was a silent, inexplicable order to the universe, and she utilised every tool given to her with consideration, thought, and precision.

Yellow Diamond seemed to delight in disobeying every carefully formulated clause of Blue Diamond's world order. 

Her fellow Diamond was loud when Blue preferred quiet, flashy when Blue offered the comforting depths of darkness, and wildly, sometimes madly, contradictory when Blue followed a set pattern for every situation in her long life. It was her powerful emotions, Blue was convinced, that led her to such... bizarre behavioral patterns. Yellow Diamond's planets were the new hub of innovation after Pink Diamond's passing, developing new technology almost faster than Blue Diamond's hidebound court could learn to use it.

It annoyed her. When Blue Diamond coldly evaluated her feelings, it frightened her, too. Yellow Diamond defied prediction, and confounded Blue Diamond's limited prescience. Blue Diamond was used to being able to evaluate, calculate, and predict her fellow Diamonds' reactions. There had to be some element that she was missing; Blue refused to accept that there couldn't be a key of knowledge that would somehow unpick Yellow Diamond's powerful emotions and make them logical and understandable. So when Yellow Diamond, noticing the increased interest from Blue, misinterpreted it, Blue was willing to go along with Yellow Diamond's uncharacteristically diffident invitation in order to find out more.

Initially, there was little to be learned from kissing Yellow Diamond other than that she was good at it (well-practiced, but that was no surprise when Blue recalled her close friendship with Pink Diamond), and relatively considerate. She vacillated between periods of extreme tenderness, touching Blue with a gentleness that seemed as if she feared Blue to break at her touch - which was ridiculous, as Blue, despite her physical weakness, was still a Diamond and easily strong enough to handle a little rough treatment, if she had to - and an odd, bruising intensity that delighted in leaving marks and encouraged Blue to do the same. Despite herself, Blue was forced to admit that the first comforted her, and the second, well, thrilled her. No one had dared brush away the cloaks and shadows that left Blue Diamond shrouded in mystery before, and as both literal and figurative light was increasingly shed upon her Blue Diamond found herself growing even further away from any sort of logical conclusion.

The experiment, then, was a failure. Intimacy with Yellow Diamond had done nothing but confuse Blue Diamond, not revealed some grand truth about empathy that Blue had been missing. Logically, therefore, Blue ought to terminate it and return her attention to ordering her own thoughts and carefully practising the non-interference that had served her so well during the rocky, emotionally-fraught years during and after Pink Diamond. Productivity would increase, everything could go back to the way it was before, and Yellow Diamond needn't ever be thought of again.

To Blue Diamond's great personal disquiet, she did not terminate the relationship as she had decided that she would. In fact, rather, she procrastinated; there was no telling how Yellow Diamond would react, so surely, Blue ought to wait until there was an opportunity to cleanly sever the attachment. The longer Blue Diamond dragged it out, the thinner the excuse wore, until eventually, Blue Diamond decided to forcibly confront it.

"I don't understand you," she told Yellow Diamond, "I thought that perhaps doing this with you would help me, but all it has done has convinced me that I won't ever be able to."

"Doing... this?" Yellow Diamond repeated. There was no doubt that she had heard Blue Diamond correctly, since her head and shoulders were rested in Blue Diamond's lap. At Blue Diamond's words, however, she sat abruptly upright in one of those fluid, jerky movements that she adopted with such ease, and stared at Blue Diamond with the fierce intensity of a great, tawny cat.

"This experiment," Blue Diamond clarified. "I attempted to gather information on you."

Something indecipherable was twisting Yellow Diamond's face. She rocked back, resting on her haunches, and squatted in the sand in front of Blue, the waves crashing up and frothing over her toes. Sand gritted over her skin from where she had lain, but she neither seemed to notice nor care. "Well?" she asked, and Blue Diamond looked uncertainly for the question, "What did you find out?"

"That you are more confusing than I had first anticipated." 

Yellow Diamond sank onto her knees and placed either hand on Blue's knees, leaning forward as she often did when she was about to initiate a kiss. But she did no such thing, but instead paused, inches from Blue's face, and asked, "I confuse you?"

"You do."

"Good confusion or bad confusion?"

"Can moral alignment be ascribed to uncertainty?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"Whether you're confused because you like being with me more than you thought you would or not." Yellow Diamond cocked her head, and her fingertips drummed Blue's kneecaps. Her square nails were blunt and the touches were light enough to be barely more than a distraction that Blue Diamond placed on Yellow Diamond's inability to keep still rather than an attempt to undermine her cognitive process. Yellow Diamond had far more effective ways of doing that.

"How does that follow?"

Yellow Diamond only stared at her, and Blue Diamond correctly supposed that Yellow Diamond meant her to think about it. She thought. And then she said, "I decided cycles ago that this experiment ought to be terminated."

"So why didn't you?"

Blue Diamond didn't respond. Overhead, the night was paling into the first rays of morning. The deep dark velvet was navy-blue, now, and the celestial print of the stars would soon be covered by light pollution from the planet's sun. The wind whispered down over the clifftops, bringing with it the scent of rain and fresh things, and sand scattered and played in smooth, sweeping lines down the sandy beach to the water's edge. Foam boiled over the sand and wetted it into dark clumps, but when it touched Blue's legs it was cool and gentle, like soapstone, and whispered to her the secrets that the ocean knew. Mist softened the scene, half of it rolled smoky from Yellow Diamond's fiery skin when the water met it. She was cooler than she had been when they had first lain in the water together, but it had taken all night to tame the fires that raged inside her. Half of that night, her head had been trustingly in Blue Diamond's lap, eyes closed, vulnerable and unafraid in such an exposed position surrounded by Blue Diamond's element.

Blue Diamond had often wondered why Yellow Diamond seemed to relax every guard around her when she wound herself tighter than a knotted spring in White Diamond's sickly, impoverished presence. Yellow Diamond was not stupid enough to have not realised that it was Blue Diamond, not White Diamond, who would pose the greater threat in terms of power to her now, but mysteriously, she just didn't seem to  _care._

Like she didn't seem to now. After a minute or two of staring, Yellow Diamond had tired of inactivity and flung herself to her feet and splashed loudly along the waterline, her sinking footprints filled over with water as soon as she made them, the long lean line of her golden shape against the paling sky lovely like sunrise. Dotted over her spine like points on a starmap were freckles, dark blue specks dusting a sheet of solid gold. Blue Diamond had connected them under her fingers and tried to find meaning in their abstract shape as they arched, splendid and speckled, over Yellow Diamond's shoulders and back. She hadn't found anything that she had understood, but had come away with innumerable aching reflections that strolled down cul-de-sacs in her mind.

Eventually, Yellow Diamond came back, her cheeks orange with renewed vigour, and her eyes sparkling like the water in the rising sun, like lava spurting to the surface. She stopped before Blue and laughed at her stillness, dropping down in front of her and sweeping the great dark curtain of Blue Diamond's long hair out of her face, pushing it back so that the water-logged tips dripped down Blue's straight, still back. 

"Did you know you have stripes?" Yellow Diamond asked, teeth gleaming whitely in her smile. "Like someone painted you with butter." She traced a line to the hollow of Blue Diamond's throat, between her collarbones, and stopped before she reached her gem. 

"I would have to have been particularly unobservant to never notice them." They marked her over her hips, her thighs, her stomach, her neck, her arms, little yellow zebra-stripes. 

"Dotted and striped, the two of us," Yellow Diamond said, well-amused, as if the specks of discolouration were anything other than holdovers of their conjoined emergence before White Diamond split them into two gems to grow and mature apart. They were shameful marks, signs of defect, yet Yellow Diamond's fingertips traced them as if finding signs of fragments of her gem embedded in Blue's were somehow beautiful instead of hideous.

"Why didn't I?" Blue Diamond asked Yellow Diamond, lost-for-answers and desperately wanting some.

"You'll figure it out one day, Blue," Yellow told her, then kicked up a wave of water to splash Blue in the face. 

The only reasonable response to that was to summon a wall of water to drench Yellow completely until her hair plastered to her face and she resembled more of a drowned cat than a Diamond, breathless with laughter.

Blue Diamond felt herself smile.

 


	11. vanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jasper/Pink Diamond.   
> Pink Diamond enjoys flattery. Unfortunately, Jasper is not the most eloquent of quartzes.

“My perfect Jasper,” said Pink Diamond, eyes lidded against the sun, “Do tell me what has you thinking so hard.”

Jasper jerked, only then realising that her eyebrows had furrowed into a scowl that probably looked thunderous on her face. She had in fact been thinking very little - if very little constituted to imaginings that were truly impossible. 

She swallowed, and avoided looking at her Diamond, the long lean line of her, stretched out on the grass like a lazy summer cat. It was not often that they did this now that rebellion had started in earnest, but on the hottest days of summer Pink Diamond would still occasionally leave her sweltering underground sanctuary for the fresh air and sunlight of the hilltops, bringing with her only her most elite and favoured guards.

Jasper was lucky enough to go nearly every time, and every time, she returned to the dimness of the subterranean court dazzled by her Diamond, thinking cocky thoughts well above her station.

Diamonds were not pearls, to be chased and lusted over for a quick night of satisfaction after a long campaign. Diamonds were for devotion, untouchable, distant, an agony of obsession. Their flawless, godly nature made them the muses of every gem. And Pink Diamond was the most glorious of them all. Simply being in her presence was enough to make Jasper awestruck, with a thudding heart and trembling knees.

She searched for diplomatic answers. Her silence dragged as Jasper fought her own rising worry.

Pink Diamond, roused by Jasper’s disobedience, opened one great rosy eye, a faint smirk curling at her soft lips. Jasper had felt them once before, brushing her head as a reward for a job well done. Pink Diamond had smiled then like she did now, slowly, warmly, teasingly, perfectly aware of her own appeal and the effect it had on others. She stretched now, linking her arms in front of her and wriggling her spine to ease the strain. Then she rolled onto her side, rested her cheek against her outstretched arm, and trailed her fingers over Jasper’s gem with the possessiveness of her nature.

“Come now, speak,” she ordered, her eyes glowing with a terrible entertainment at Jasper’s dilemma.

“My Diamond shines in the sun,” Jasper blurted, hiding her face as her cheeks blazed with embarrassment.

“I do? I do.” Pink Diamond sounded surprised but pleased. “You may admire my beauty.” She stretched out again, so that Jasper had the perfect view of her gemstone, shining warmly in the sun, of her pink skin glistening like the heart of a flower in rainfall.

Anxious to pay the proper respect to the gift but unequipped with a loquacious vocabulary, Jasper fumbled for words. She was a Quartz, built for battles and blood, not some honey-tongued courtier like the emeralds.

“My Diamond honours me,” she said lamely, and then with a spark of inspiration added, “because… she is the most beautiful of all gemkind.”

“Is that so?” Pink Diamond said, amused.

“Yes!” Jasper cried, a little too earnestly. She flushed a bit at her forwardness but then continued with a boldness inherent to her gemtype. “She is the most compassionate, the most fearsome, the most beautiful and awe-inspiring, the most glorious and terrible of all Diamonds.”

Pink Diamond’s eyes gleamed with pleasure at the slew of compliments. “Am I stronger than White, more beloved than Blue, more decisive than Yellow?” she asked, coyly.

Jasper’s answer was immediate. “Without a doubt, my Diamond.”

Pink Diamond preened. “Tell me more.”

Jasper scrounged for words. She was no wordsmith, and while Pink Diamond didn't lack for qualities to describe, Jasper certainly lacked the words to explain them. A little panicked, she said, “My Diamond’s grace is beyond compare and her voice makes the earth tremble.”

“It does,” Pink Diamond agreed.

She flicked a finger and the ground rocked underneath Jasper. Instinctively, Jasper grabbed hold of several thick clumps of grass as the earth underneath her roiled and suddenly rose with a crumble of rock, placing her at an elevated position just above her Diamond. With a little smirk, Pink Diamond blinked up at her expectantly, warm and contented in the sunlight.

It was clearly a demonstration of power and a not-so-tacit request for praise, so Jasper, like any good Quartz, obeyed the unspoken command.

“My Diamond’s power is so immense as to crack the world if she wishes it,” said Jasper, quite truthfully. "My Diamond is the most terrifying and commanding of all - but, her majesty is so great, that… that it forces every gem that looks at her to love her.”

“A Quartz with the mouth of a pearl!” Pink Diamond cried, well pleased.

She reached up and caught Jasper from her pedestal, pinching the back of her uniform between her thumb and forefinger. In a show of strength, she lifted Jasper from the pedestal and dropped her onto her stomach.

Manfully, Jasper suppressed a yelp as she pinched flesh - and then sat there, shocked breathless, very much aware of Pink Diamond’s gemstone behind her and Jasper’s legs either side of her body, the bare skin underneath her hands where the edge of Pink Diamond's clothes stopped to allow an opening for her gem. She quivered in awe at the receiving of such a gift, and looked into Pink Diamond’s glittering eyes. It was not exactly a Quartz's place to touch a Diamond. 

“Love,” she repeated. One hand raised, cupped Jasper’s skull, nails lightly scratching against Jasper’s scalp. “Do my servants love me?” she asked, coy again, teasing again, but with a pulsing undercurrent in her voice.

Jasper shuddered. “Unquestionably,” she replied immediately.

Pink Diamond smiled. “And, my perfect Jasper, do you love me?”

Without pause, Jasper vowed, “More than life, my Diamond.”

Self-satisfied as a fat cat, Pink Diamond stretched out into the sun and said carelessly, “You may continue to praise me.”

“Thank you, my Diamond,” whispered Jasper, and did as she was told.


	12. left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Pink Diamond's shattering on Earth, as faced by her closest subordinates.

_"War does not determine who is right, only who is left." - Bertrand Russell_

* * *

  _00:04:54 AFTER_

 ~~shock.~~  the pearl stares. The shards, very broken, gleam back. Crushed flowers make the world smell deathly sweet, fragrant. ~~roses. they are roses.~~ There is shouting. Screaming, too, the sort of desolation that can only be achieved when one's purpose has been utterly ripped from them. ~~shattered.~~   the pearl waits for time to reverse itself. For the cracks to flow back together. For the grinning smirk of her perfect ~~young~~ Diamond. For the irreversible shards in herself to go away. ~~useless.~~

 ~~they don't. they won't.~~  Time keeps going.

the pearl stares at the shards. the pearl waits. Around her, chaos reigns.

* * *

  _07:33:17 AFTER_

It is Earth's night cycle. Shadows steep the world deep and dark. The edges of the shards catch the light, prismatic, and reflect it with a thousand rosy hues. The stars wink from the great arches of the windows from which the rebels had escaped. The crushed roses were beginning to reek, sickly sweet and rotting. There were still gems. The ones that were left were standing motionlessly, waiting for commands. Waiting for the impossible. No one took charge. 

the pearl's feet are starting to ache. The hollowness inside her gem is tempered only by the barely-felt beginning of aches gathering there. the pearl waits.

* * *

_13:11:08 AFTER_

The Diamonds have arrived. Great, glorious, splendid.  _Ratta-tat-tat_ of Blue Diamond's palanquin.  _Click-click-click_ of Yellow Diamond's bootheels.  _Thud-crash-lurch-scream_ as White Diamond falls apart.

Silhouetted in the corner of the pearl's eye, she is terrible, one eye blazing diamond-bright with fever, the left dim and uncertain. She limps, dragging on her left side, and her teeth and nails are sharper than a sane gem's had any right to be. A blistering wind roars through the hall. The shards twinkle like they have a secret. White Diamond howls.

the pearl is little and she flies far and fast when White Diamond thrusts her aside. Arms akimbo, she listlessly lets herself fall and is relieved when the landing snaps her neck.

* * *

_01:19:40:17 AFTER_

the pearl takes a week to regenerate. When she does, she finds herself stared at by a huge jasper with lost wheat-gold eyes and shaggy hair like snowmelt. The jasper is on her knees. She cries when the pearl stares at her. the pearl cries, too. The jasper holds her very tightly like she wants to crush her. the pearl knows this jasper well. Pink Diamond's perfect Jasper. She doesn't look so perfect right now. 

"No one was paying attention to a little pearl," the jasper tells her. the pearl nods. the pearl knows that she will be shattered soon. There is no use for a pearl without a mistress. "Someone might have stepped on you."

"loyal jasper," the pearl whispers. 

* * *

_01:140:10:8 AFTER_

Blue Diamond summons the pearl eventually. She reclines, steeped in shadow, with her hood dipped down to cover the golden daubs on her skin. the pearl knows they are there because she has seen them when her Diamond and Blue Diamond have made love. blue pearl stands idly beside the throne and the pearl stared at her in bitter fury and envy. 

~~_why her diamond?_ ~~

the pearl tells the story quietly and concisely, the gem on her belly projecting the images as they come. Yellow Diamond's pearl watches with her scrunched up golden eyes and eidetic memory. Of White's - shards.

~~pearlescent pale shards to go with rose pink diamond.~~

 "Good pearl," says Blue Diamond when the pearl is finished. Blue Diamond dismisses the pearl, and the pearl fades from her mind. the pearl is expected to return to her mistress. But the pearl has no mistress.

the pearl is caught in a paroxysm of choice. Purposeless, she drifts out of the hall down towards one cubicle in the soldiers' barracks. The jasper's room is deserted. the pearl folds herself like a gift beside the chair and waits.

* * *

_01:152:37:54 AFTER_

"Had patrol," the jasper explains gruffly. The jasper fits herself beside the pearl, hip to hip, even though there is enough space in the room. They sit tightly together and stare at the wall. Purposeless.

"I'm going after Rose Quartz," says the jasper. the pearl says nothing, but her tiny pink hand finds the brutish lump of the jasper's fist. Softly, delicately, she pats.

~~_don't leave her alone_ ~~

~~~~The jasper crushes the pearl's hand in her fist and utters low, melancholy howls, an animal pushed beyond the brink. the pearl wraps an arm over her shoulder and encourages the jasper to cry it out. The jasper's fists clutch onto her convulsively and scoop her into thick, muscular arms. With the jasper around her like a cage, the pearl covers her face in thick wiry white hair and lets herself be reassured by the tightness of the hold.

 ~~_she won't be able to. no amount of tears will bring their diamond back._ ~~ ~~~~

_"They'll shatter you,"_ the jasper whispers into her ear, "Won't they?"

"eventually," the pearl confirms. ~~she is useless without her diamond~~

"I won't let them," the jasper vows. "If I can't go after Rose Quartz I can at least protect you. _She..._ always loved you!"

The jasper's loyalty brings her to tears again. the pearl curls up against her chest and tries to feel safe.

* * *

_02:148:46:08 AFTER_

White Diamond is _not right._ White Diamond _lurches_ to the left and her eye, vaguely, _roams_ for something to _hurt,_ and she holds her left side stiffly, like she has a secret to hide. the pearl notices these things because she is a pearl and ~~because~~ ~~~~ ~~pink diamond would've wanted to know~~ and White Diamond doesn't rest. She walks the earth-colony like a ghost and moans terribly like a dead thing.

She stops, though, when she sees the pearl. And White Diamond's face cracks open like glacier melt and the wind groans through her teeth. She stumbles and falls heavily to the left. The hand that shoots out to catch her fall is not a hand at all.

the pearl is a good pearl and she doesn't react. ~~nothing is more horrifying than those shards~~

"White Diamond." the pearl whispers. "do you require assistance from this pearl?"

White Diamond gurgles a laugh and coughs thickly through corrupted lungs. _"You're so like Her, pretending to not be disgusted by what She did to me,"_ she hisses, _"I could just snap you up."_ Her teeth are long and yellow, sabretooth in her smile when the pearl helps her up.

 _"You and me,"_ White Diamond continues, _"We know what She used to do to bad gems. Don't you? Well, She showed me, too."_

The scales on her left paw look almost pinkish in the light.

* * *

_03:23:21:03 AFTER_

The Diamonds are furious and the jasper tells the pearl why. "Rose Quartz," moans the jasper with terrible fervour, "Rose Quartz attacked Blue Diamond's court."

It's not the whole of the story, and the pearl isn't interested in Rose Quartz. the pearl's blood boils when she hears about the _Renegade,_ instead. She strokes the jasper's long tangled hair and whispers revenge fantasies into jasper's ear, what the jasper must do to the _Renegade_ when the jasper catches her, for as a pearl, the pearl knows all the best ways to hurt other pearls. It is a nightly refuge for the both of them, whispering poison to the other until their hearts are dark and angry and as sick as White Diamond.

The jasper's eyes gleam the yellow of infection. Earth reeks of it now. ~~pink diamond's shards are beginning to rot.~~ ~~~~

* * *

_03:30:41:09 AFTER_

the pearl scrubs dirt from the cracks under White Diamond's scales. Undressed, her body is resplendent white. the pearl looks at her and traces by memory where her Diamond scratched marks that took the longest to heal. She is flawless so long as the pearl looks at her from the right. White Diamond carefully dabs away at mucus oozing from her left eye. She complains at her sight getting dimmer all the time, experiments with brushing her hair to cover it. The swollen spikes and spires of corruption are beginning to spot her shoulder, and her leg thins, bony with protuberances.

"It won't be for much longer," White Diamond says, dubiously. "Once we destroy the rebellion, and capture the rebels - well, Rose Quartz supposedly has healing powers. Doesn't she?"

the pearl says nothing, and serves like a good pearl. ~~White is not her Diamond.~~

* * *

_05:12:45:17 AFTER_

the pearl knows before the jasper that there will not be a rebel surrender.

The rebels are better organised and better trained. Homeworld's troops move clumsily on this earth. The Crystal Gems strike ~~like snakes~~ , gone again before they have to face the shards of what they've done. The Diamonds argue amongst themselves and give conflicting orders. The jasper returns to her cubicle violent and angry, and holds the pearl, shuddering viciously in an attempt to reign in her anger. She never raises so much as a bruise on the pearl's strawberry coloured skin and has a habit of kissing anywhere that she hurts. the pearl doesn't mind. ~~She knows what this jasper was to Pink Diamond.~~

"I just need someone," the jasper begs uselessly, "To make me _strong_ again, I need-"

~~_pink diamond is still gone._ ~~

* * *

_05:102:50:12 AFTER_

~~"Corruption."~~

_"Shall we show them, little pink pearl, what She did to bad gems?"_


	13. photocopy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pearlrose.  
> White Diamond's pearls are made identical. Rose manages to find one a little different from the rest.

Rose can't tell if it's a different pearl each time.

They are made like photocopies of late summer leaves, dandelion heads nodding in the breeze. A hundred sets of three glossy marbles meet her, perfectly placid pearls with vacant, pleasing eyes and slender, slip-thin, squirming bodies. They are beautiful, like thin leaf skeletons with radiant silver limbs crept over by ice.

Rose's plentiful plush body overrolling with flesh, warmth, life, a spot of hectic blush and her vibrant, expansive nature are innocuous to her surroundings, but instead of discomfort, Rose looks on in wonder at a frigid world so different from her own.

She sits on one of the glassy, refractive column-stumps that poke up from the floor like glossy mushroom heads. The chandeliers poised overhead reflect crystalline fractals over the floor, which is rubbed smooth with that particular shine only attainable from hundreds of pairs of soft plimsolls caught in perpetual dance. Audible is the low moan of wind through the white marble maze, the thistlegrass whisper of tittering pearls.

There are surely tens and twenties of them, Rose thinks in awe. They flock like pale-veined moths around Rose, tiny twig hands tugging Rose's boisterous ringlets, insistent chorus begging Rose to tell them a story again, another fable of her exploits, each braggart claim accompanied with a susurrus of sweet sighs.

"News travels slowly to the palace," giggles one pearl. "Rarely do we entertain such beautiful and brave guests!" Another trills. "Oh, tell us again, you are so strong, so valiant, so powerful and fearsome!" Another flirts.

Half of what they say, Rose doubts is true. Certainly not when they all flock at once to kiss her wherever they can reach with paper-kisses that feel like blossom-brushes on the tough and thick skin of a Quartz. But she is enamoured with them, with their delicate, fine-tuned fluttering, flitterbys of a bygone honeysuckle age.

She usually ends up touching one like a curious child, marvelling at her stubby fingers and broad palms on their carefully-boned, elegant bodies, at the wispy feel of the pearl, like crushed up leaf skeletons silvery in the morning dew-light. Sometimes the pearl will draw her into playful kisses and the taste of her lips feels like fruit stolen from the most mercurial of goblin markets, ripe and overrich with sweetness and a tang of oceansalt. Sometimes the pearl will link arms of ribbed ice around Rose's stout ruddy neck and sing in a high clarion voice about the escapades of noble gems, of the Diamond she serves.

Sometimes, rarely, secretively, the pearl will curl languid long limbs over Rose's chubby thighs and angle her bony shoulder so Rose's hair laps loosely down over where their bodies touch like it is a forbidden thing, and she will lift one of Rose's tough browned hands in her limp alabaster grip and trace the calluses there, and she will lean up and plead like a secret, "Tell me of the battles you fight."

And the little pearl will be insatiable for every detail, and her eyes will glow with passion and vivacity, and Rose's heart will lurch uneven thuds against her breastbone, and the pearl will smile as Rose blushes as bright scarlet as her namesake when, in thanks, thin dry little lips press a kiss in the centre of her palm. The next time Rose goes into battle, she crunches the pearl's kiss against her palms and feels as if she could fight with the strength of a thousand roaring lions.

She hoards each time, keeping it close like a withered rose pressed between the inked pages of a lover's diary. The pearl's kisses are rare and hardwon, but Rose cherishes each all the more for it. She gets possessive. Her Pearl. The pearl that asks about swords with a gleam in her eyes of appetites unslaked, like when sex was fresh. Rose pulls out her shield and the pearl skews her body around it, the curve of her spine worshipful as it pushes her taut stomach into the bowl the shield makes, fingers scattering over the smooth surface with a caressing quality that makes Rose's skin feel sensitive and hot.

But still, for all these things, Rose can't tell which graceful, teasing little slinker is her pearl of the battles and bloodlust.

If she is an actor, she is an adept one. When Rose searches the lineup of drooping winter blossoms for one bright hot carolina-jasmine, star-splashes of gold around all those insipid daisies - somehow, her pearl blurs herself into one of them.

Rose is often at White Diamond's palace and often found wandering the twisting corridors like a gem lost, forsaken in wonder, turning starry eyes up at striking silhouettes slipping along the skyline where wall merged into cloud. She whispers her war stories as an offering, a lure, bargained from other quartzes for a healing tear, for a kiss, for an embrace, and eventually, the pearl, as if caught by some golden bridle, returns to her, and kisses her by the fountains where the water springs fast and shimmering, like wings.

Rose knows that it is her Pearl then, for when they are alone her Pearl has a fire in her eye and a striking confidence in her step, and her hands are steady and sure when they wrap around wire-hilts.

Because Rose cannot resist bringing her swords. Not when it makes her light up so, not when she expresses her gratitude with kisses and her fingers wind demandingly in Rose's hair, yanking hard with a lack of subservience that is wholly unlike the others.

And Rose will, kneeling, press her face into her Pearl's stomach when they must leave, and kiss her, listening to her laughter as she coaxes her Pavlovian Quartz to a standing more befitting of her station.

Yet, for all of these savoured moments aloft, Rose returns to earth and when she does, the pearl is gone and a puppet prances in her place. And Rose searches, fruitlessly, for all that she knows that her pearl will not show herself until it's safe to be fiery in an icebound palace. Her Pearl is quicker and cannier than Rose is, and no matter of traps Rose can devise so much as touch her. The second time Rose tries to catch her deliberately, print some defining mark to differentiate her from her sisters, a sucked mark into her neck, perhaps, the trace of a star or a scar or a scratch, her Pearl retaliates by hurling a sword at her through the piercing mists and vanishing with a laugh that rises in sweet descant to the clatter the sword makes as it hits the floor, inches from spearing Rose through.

Rose thinks she maybe guesses then.

"Let me teach you how to use that," she asks her Pearl. Her Pearl cocks her head, sharp and shining like an inquisitive blackbird, and her thin lips crack like the teeth of winter as she smiles. Her skin is as cold as hoarfrost and as smooth as polished stone when Rose touches her to correct her stance.

They train until her Pearl's hands crack and bleed with the delicacy of a brittle leaf. Her blood is the colour of soft blue skies in summer, a peculiar and impossible turquoise that only occurs when winds are high and strong. She is faster than Rose, her featherlight body twisting and turning with practised ease into the most improbable of positions to avoid blows.

"It's rather like a dance," she tells Rose, her blood high with excitement.

Rose nods, a little tentatively, because to her fighting has never been anything but a regrettable pleasure, morals mixed up with gemetic makeup. Rose rather likes fighting with Pearl, though. Pearl seems to know how to make it thrilling instead of discomforting.

The time comes when Pink Diamond tires of White Diamond's hospitality, and retreats to their base on Earth, and as they go Rose looks over her shoulder at the white domes of the palace sunken into the ground like an airborne virus, and bites her lip hard enough that it almost feels like Pearl is kissing her with that practised intensity again. Rose, as untethered to anywhere but Earth as a dandelion's seed heads, has the ache in her heart that throbs with all the pain of a leaf skeleton crushed under a hasty hand, now inefficiently smoothed, the curled up veins of its former beauty smashed beyond repair.

There are pearls there at the gates, lounging indolently over sunwarmed, refractive glass-stone, and though Rose searches their pretty faces she cannot see a flicker of her Pearl in there at all.

Rose stares hard at each perfect, pale face, and promises each placid marble gaze that she will be back, in due time, she will take her Pearl away from this place to Earth, where the soil is ripe with possibility and Pearls can be anything they want to be.

She thinks maybe she imagines her Pearl's glittering laugh. "And how will you find me?"

Rose knows her Pearl, though. Her Pearl is the pearl with fire in her eyes and fighting calluses on her hands. It's impossible to not set her apart from the others.


	14. everybody is happy and nobody dies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Pearlrose Week 2016, Day One, the prompt for which was "everyone is happy and no one dies." Naturally, I took "no one dies" in the most difficult way possible.  
> "This is ostensibly for Pearlrose Week 2016, but moreso because I became invested in designing corrupt!Pearl and then I had literally no ideas so have this garbage I wrote in five minutes bye"

No one quite knew where the monsters had come from, or what they were. Cracked conspiracy theories muttered about elite authorities of inorganic aliens dropping radiation bombs, but they were largely disregarded, at least in Beach City. The monsters positively abounded there, green-shelled centipedes spewing acid on the trash, huge, snuffling doglike creatures pacing around the boundaries of town at night, worms squirming in the sea, and great many-winged birds blocking out the sun when they wheeled overhead.

The residents of Beach City grimly reinforced fences and doors, held encounter training sessions in the village hall, and enjoyed their unprecedentedly low crime rate. No one really had any burning desire to go out at night with the vast, awe-inspiring monsters roaming the streets, lurid, impossible colours and shapes and sizes unlike any proper Earth animal.

Except, that was, for Greg and Steven Universe.

“Did you bring the pies, Dad?” Steven was asking, half-distracted as he turned and turned, trying to spot the telltale shape of a monster.

“They’re in the back, kiddo, give me a second to grab them,” Greg said, ruffling Steven’s hair.

Feeding the monsters made Steven happy, and as a single parent working minimum wage with little spare money, Greg wasn’t willing to make him go without this too. They had a little band of regulars and favourites, and Steven had a way with the beasts. Greg had never seen them so much as growl at the little boy.

They’d enlisted help from Vidalia to make enough mince pies to surely feed every monster in Beach City twice over, each little mince pie topped with a wonky pastry star glazed with sugar. Steven’s reasoning was that mince pies were for when the weather was cold, but it was always cold at night, so therefore the monsters could have mince pies all year round if they wanted.

Greg pulled one box out of the back of the van, balancing it against his hip as he fiddled with the keys. He glanced up to the sound of Steven’s delighted laughter.

A monster had slunk out of the darkness when Greg wasn’t watching. She was one of the dog-types, with great shaggy curls of bright pink mane falling around her powerful shoulders down to the wagging brush that counted as her tail. The monster towered over Steven, even with her belly pressed into the floor in an attempt to look less threatening, and Greg winced to see the sharp teeth in her craggy mouth as she eagerly licked Steven’s face and hands.

“Dad, Dad, look! Rose is back!”

“Careful there,” Greg shouted back, unnecessarily, for of all the monsters the least likely to hurt Steven was the giant pink dog-type with the rose quartz stone in her belly. Still, Steven was the only kid Greg had and he never knew what set the monsters off sometimes.

Greg was familiar with this particular beast. Years ago, when Greg had been a young rockstar passing through Beach City, Rose had attacked his van and ripped it to shreds. Greg had missed his concert, got a job to pay for the fix, fell in love with a beautiful woman that gave him both Steven and heartbreak, and developed the habit of feeding the particularly persistent pink monster spare parts from the car-wash. Steven had echoed this habit as he grew up. Greg tried not to hold it against her and equally never painted diamond-shapes on his van ever again. For some reason, Rose hated them.

“What’ve you been up to, trouble?” he asked her as he passed the pies down to Steven. Her mouth hung open and her tongue lolled out as she panted contentedly at him, looking rather smug and pleased with herself, if Greg was any indication of reading vaguely canine monster faces. “Not attacking any more innocent travellers, I hope?”

Rose ducked her head and whined.

“I told you she was gonna come back!” Steven exclaimed triumphantly, throwing his arms around the monster’s great fluffy neck and squeezing as hard as he could. The monster rumbled something in her chest and gently bumped his shoulder with her muzzle. “Didn’t I?” he demanded, voice somewhat muffled by the sheer amount of fluff his face was buried in.

“You sure did, Ste-man.” Truth be told, Greg was relieved to see her again. Steven had been inconsolable in the weeks following Rose’s unexpected and sudden disappearance from her usual haunting grounds in Beach City, and Greg had privately worried that she’d been shot by some spooked farmer.

Rose lifted her shaggy head and barked at the darkness. Her pink mane glowed dusky yellow in the pool of light from the nearby streetlamp, the trailing edges damp from dusk’s rainfall. To Greg’s surprise, she was answered by a somewhat querulous hiss. Out of the shadows came a pale curve of iridescent scales as a second monster, shy, skirted the lamplight. The hiss modulated into a passing resemblance of Rose’s bark.

“Oooh,” Steven whispered, breathless with excitement. “You brought a friend!”

“Ooooooo,” the second monster echoed, at a higher and frankly more unnerving pitch. Greg shuddered and discreetly took hold of Steven’s shoulder to prevent him from running forwards into the darkness.

“Wow!” Steven’s eyes widened, round and shiny with awe. “Hi there,” he called in a deliberately soft voice, “You gonna come out, buddy?”

Rose barked.

“Don’t be shy!”

The monster slithered out of the darkness, first a long, pale snout, then a high forehead emblazoned with a pearl and surrounded by weblike frills. Then the neck, and the long supine body. The monster was covered snout to tail in overlapping, pale scales somewhat resembling feathers that glistened with an array of diffracted colours.

“Pearl!” Steven cried, and the monster’s eyes suddenly fully opened in surprise - all six of them, three on each side of the neck. Her mouth opened, revealing that it operated with a trifold jaw, and they bore witness to her attempt at mimicking Steven’s cry. “Eaarrll!”

“Ooh, man,” Greg whispered. He was having nightmares tonight.

“See, she’s got a pearl on her head, I’m gonna call her Pearl,” Steven explained to his father. Greg nodded a little faintly. He was still rather fixated on the three razor sharp rows of teeth.

Rose lowered her head, and with a smug hiss, Pearl slithered over her shoulder to loop herself around Rose’s barrel shoulders and neck like a brilliantly gleaming rope. The two monsters paused to touch noses.

“Dad!” Steven yanked his arm. “Dad! Rose went away to find a girlfriend! Ohh, I’ve gotta tell Lars and Sadie, their position as Beach City’s top couple is being threatened! Connie’s been on Rose-watch!”  He all but threw the box of pies at Rose, who caught them out of the air with her mouth. “Engagement gift!” Steven yelled over his shoulder, running back to the van to find his phone.

“Well, uh, Pearl,” Greg said, awkwardly, “I hope you like pie. Because we have about twenty boxes in there.”

Pearl hissed at him, the three split parts of her mouth yawning open like a flytrap. Greg was definitely going to have nightmares. So many, horrifically detailed, nightmares.

“What a good time to remember that we’re all alive and happy and don’t want to murder each other,” Greg squeaked.  
Rose’s mouth lolled open in amusement, and her tail thumped the ground as she set to work devouring the pies.


	15. folklore and fairytales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Two "folklore and fairytales" of Pearlrose Week 2016.

Pearl’s wrists were beginning to chafe. The rope was thick, tough, and resilient, and bound to a weatherbeaten pole hammered firmly into the ground. They’d at least left her enough slack to pace a limited circle around the pole, which Pearl had proceeded to do. For the past four or five hours.

It was nearing high noon now, and the sun beat down warmly on Pearl’s face and neck. The air smelled of fresh grass and springtime, with a tang of salt blown in from the nearby coast. Just outside of Pearl’s little circle, waist-high green grass waved back and forth gently in the breeze. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the nearby trees rustled and piped with life.

It was truly a lovely day. The men would be out on the fishing boats, she thought, nets dragging through the deep, singing sea shanties to the wind. And the women would be out, lined up like dolls on the pier to laugh and mend nets with nimble hands. There would be some adventurous youngsters sent beyond the boundaries of the village to gather herbs in the nearby woods, where they’d meet for quick, earthen trysts, baskets abandoned.

Everyone was assured of a productive spring after a good sacrifice. However, the longer the day dragged on without the goddess’ seven lions descending from heaven to rip Pearl’s heretic body limb from limb, or some nymphs or faefolk appearing to take Pearl away as their servant forever, or anything remotely significant happening in fact, the more Pearl began to question if she was a good sacrifice at all. No one had ever been rejected before, Pearl thought, doubtfully, feeling almost insulted by the goddess’ disinterest.

“I’ll have you know,” she announced to the world at large, “That I am considered to be a filthy criminal.”

The grass waved on, undisturbed. A bee buzzed around Pearl’s head and landed on a nearby flower. A rook thumped overhead.

“I’ve been charged with no less than two counts of heresy,” Pearl continued self-righteously. “Two!”

No mysterious and powerful goddess appeared, not even one measly lion.

Heaving a sigh, Pearl sank down to the ground and let her head thud dully back against the post. Glumly, she imagined sitting here until she died of starvation and the flesh rotted away from her bones, until next spring when the village picked a new heathen to be sacrificed, and then they’d all come into the sacrificial field and realise that Pearl had never been taken. Maybe  the butcher’s girl, Amethyst, would start crying and declare that they’d all been wrong about Pearl, and beautiful Garnet wouldn’t say anything but she’d be crying as well, and then Pearl would forever be remembered as the one peasant not heretical enough for the goddess.

She cringed in the anticipated embarrassment her poor, lonely skeleton would face.

“Any goddess would be lucky to have me,” Pearl muttered, dejected.

“I’m sure they would!” The bellow startled Pearl so much that she yelped, shocked out of her self-pitying demeanour. She blinked in astonishment.

Some distance away, a giant pink-haired woman was making her way inefficiently through the thick grass, evidently struggling not to trip on the exceedingly long white dress she was wearing. Her cheeks were appled-red with effort, and her skin was entirely too smooth-looking for someone who made a journey like this everyday. Her body jiggled and juddered as she walked, unapologetic with wealth, and her vibrant curls were more voluminous than anything Pearl had ever seen.

Pausing a moment, the improbable woman cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, “Because you’re very beautiful!”

Even from half a hillside away, it was as loud as if the woman had been standing right next to her. Pearl, stunned by the woman’s sheer lung-power and flattered by the unexpected compliment, stared. She felt a blush creeping up her cheekbones and valiantly made absolutely no effort to stop it.

It took half an hour or so before the woman, huffing and puffing mightily, reached the post to which Pearl was tied. Pearl, head on her knees, asked morosely, with a tinge of hope, “Are you the goddess Rose Quartz, come to take me away to your palace to punish me for being a heretic and feed me to your many lions?”

“Er,” said the woman, still gasping for breath, “No?”

“Because I’m a heretic,” Pearl assured her earnestly. “I have two counts of heresy.”

“That’s exciting! What… for?”

“I’m a skirt-chaser, you see,” said Pearl, her gaze growing distant. “Tempting my fellow women to - kisses. And such things.”

“Only two?” the woman sounded both surprised and a little disappointed. “Was it the same person twice?”

“No!” Pearl stated proudly.

“You sound like a… most… heretical person,” said the woman, and Pearl beamed at her.

“You really think so?”

“What, do you want to be sacrificed?” asked the woman, mystified.

“I just don’t think she’s coming!” cried Pearl, and burst into loud, noisy sobbing. Her misery was so complete that she was reduced to incoherency, burying her face into her knobbly knees and hugging her skinny legs. Was there a problem with Pearl?

“Oh, oh dear, you’re crying, oh dear-” the woman, flustered, awkwardly patted Pearl’s head. “There, there, don’t cry. Oh dear. Don’t cry, please. If I happened to be the goddess Rose Quartz which I’m definitely not because I am definitely a human, I would be extremely pleased to take you away to my secret palace over there, probably not to punish you or to feed you to lions or anything, but uh, ask you everything you know about your life and humans and well-” She cleared her throat and pointed vaguely over her shoulder. “But I’m not. Rose Quartz, that is.”

“Why would Rose Quartz be interested in humans?” Pearl demanded. “She’s a goddess.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” the woman cried back. “Humans are so complex, so wonderful, so inventive and new and exciting, and maybe Rose Quartz feels a little lonely and stagnant all by herself! And maybe, she doesn’t understand why humans keep worshipping her, and maybe she just wants to make friends! Maybe all she really wants is someone to teach her how to be something different! Not that I know because I’m a human and not Rose Quartz. But if I was Rose Quartz, that’s definitely how I would feel!”

“I suppose… I never really thought about it that way,” said Pearl, contemplatively. She sighed and hugged herself tighter.

The woman tentatively lowered herself down to the ground beside Pearl, heaving several expansive sighs as she settled. Her riot of curls bounced boisterously over her shoulders as she lifted her hand and placed it on Pearl’s shoulder.

“Why do they think that women together is heresy, Pearl?” The strange woman asked, cocking her head slightly as she did so. Curls cascaded around her face, one momentarily sticking to her lip gloss.

“Oh, it wasn’t that they were women,” Pearl dismissed, “It’s just that they’re both married. To each other, but apparently it still counts as adultery.”

“Oh!” said the woman. “Oh.” She was frowning in confusion. “I… don’t really understand that either.”

“It works off the concept of monogamy.”

“Right,” said the woman uncomfortably. “That.”

“I realise,” said Pearl apologetically, “that I never asked for your name.”

“My name!” The woman was at once panicked. “Yes, my name! Which is - my name is, ah - Ros-ie! Yes, Rosie! My name is Rosie the human.”

“Pearl.” She smiled, just a little, and it was rather watery but still a definite smile. Careful of her now red wrists, Pearl patted Rosie’s hand on her shoulder with her own bound together ones,  thanking her for her kindness. Rosie blushed as deep and red as rose blossoms and glanced to one side, not really bothering to hide her answering big, silly grin.

“I never took your ropes off!” Rosie suddenly yelped, looking aghast at her oversight. Before Pearl could offer an ounce of protest, Rosie caught the rope in her free hand and snapped it with one determined tug, the restraints around Pearl’s wrists unravelling as she did so.

Gaping, Pearl looked from Rosie’s hand to the snapped rope. She couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, come on!” she shouted, “I’ve been yanking on that rope for hours!”

“I, uh - do many human rest activities like sleeping and- Oh!”

For Pearl had thrown her arms around Rosie’s waist and was squeezing her into a hug as tightly as she dared. The hug put her in a rather excellent position to hide her flaming cheeks against Rosie’s stout neck, and give her a good excuse to lightly wind her fingers through the thick curls. Rosie cleared her throat, sounding bizarrely tearful, and then scooped Pearl up and gripped her so hard that Pearl felt her ribs creak. Pearl, torn between suffocation and the slow feeling of her ribcage caving in, wheezed, perfectly ready for death in the arms of a giant, pink-haired woman overzealously embracing her.

“No one’s ever hugged me before!” Rosie wailed, dropping Pearl just as blackness threatened to overtake her vision. She set Pearl down in front of her and clumsily smashed her lips onto Pearl’s forehead, then doubled over to cry enormous, heaving sobs. “Thank you!”

Pearl, flat-out on the grass and gasping unattractively for air like a half-dead fish, managed to rasp a weak, “Y’welcome.”


	16. discovering the earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Three, "discovering the earth", of Pearlrose Week 2016.

Rose enjoyed wandering at dawn the most.

The great bowl of the sky was pale sapphire blue, striped by candyfloss pink and fluffy clouds tinted with yellows like egg yolk. The birds were rousing to a noisy chorus, and shy rabbits nibbled dew-brushed green grass like little sculptured grey stones. The leaves on the trees were the piercing green of new, young things, and the bark felt ridged and rough under her hands, worn through with thousands of unseen and hidden insects. There was a hope in each new day, a sense of the untainted, a freshness that Rose envied. On Earth, dawn was the time that life thrived.

Pearl liked dusk better.

The shadows were deep and purple, velvet blues fading into black that blurred the sharp edges and rawness off of the primal, fastpaced life of Earth into a more sedate, winding-down speed that was more forgiving to an old gem who missed the stars still hidden by an orange-scarlet setting sun. Slender deer came down to drink in the twilight, predators padded through the darkening shapes of trees that all seemed to blur into one, and humdrum fireflies painted the sky gold with their turning dances. At dusk, the business of the day was done, and the shadows were kind to a lingering alien standing at the edges of human villages, listening without understanding to the wavesong of murmuring voices.

They came together somewhen around midnight.

There was a sort of silken hush to Earth nights that made them magical, interminable things, little slices of eternity with the sweetness of fresh oranges on the tongue. Galaxies sprawled over the sky like careless daubs of celestial paint, the moon hung like a half-smile of pearly teeth, and the stars glittered like gem-shards.

Rose would plummet from the black sky with a bouncing laugh, land as delicately as the brush of a butterfly’s wing, her bare feet leaving tracks in the soft wet river mud that would puzzle the lone herdsman come to drink his beasts in the fast-flowing water at the break of the new day. Curls would spill over her shoulders and she’d halt, breathless dark eyes suddenly shiny and round with wonder at some tiny ladybug, crawling down a green stem.

Drawn by her laughter, Pearl would appear, a slim ghost picking her way sensibly out of the birch woods gleaming silver in the moonlight, a song in her throat and limbs and eyes and lips, irrepressibly shaping, refining each movement to an excess of grace. She was silent until she sang, but when she did, Rose followed the song half a beat after, as if no melody Pearl could ever create was unfamiliar and foreign to her, the plucked lyrics weaving a harmony ringing of thousands of years of deep, depthless love.

They’d hold hands and wander the flat shadowlands, kissing in the rain, until Rose’s curls were so thick and heavy that she looked half-drowned and half-doubled under the weight, and sheepishly she’d endure Pearl’s laughter as Pearl’s nimble fingers helped wring the worst of it out. Between the laughter and the kisses, they’d talk, about discovery, about the things they had found and done and seen, pressing tokens of experience into the other’s palms - scraps of ragged leaf, a snapped twig, a stone washed smooth by the great sea where the waves were huge and steely grey, but diving down deep brought a colourful and vivid world untouchable to humans, forests of kelp and coral, quick-darting fish, lumberous whales.

“I found something that reminded me of you,” they’d say at once, in sync, and Rose’s eyes would crinkle up at the corners and her great laughter would shake the cave out of the rain, and Pearl’s would rise in sweet descant behind a hand covering her mouth.

“It’s a place,” Rose said, “Beautiful, like you are!”

She’d stumbled upon it whilst chasing wolves, laughing as they yipped and growled, moving like fast grey bullets through the undergrowth. The dawnlight had lit up the radiance of the pools like copper pennies, and Rose, awed, had discovered an abandoned fishtrap lodged in one tidal pool, silvery darting bodies captured within. She hadn’t liked the way the fish squirmed in the cage, so she’d set them free and laughed as they all danced away, shimmering under the surface.

Pearl blushed and rested her cheek on Rose’s shoulder, smile of pleasure silver in the moonlight, eyes and gem faintly luminescent. “I learned how to make it from a human,” she said.

By watching, silent in the woods behind them as the human’s clever hands carved and whittled, still as a statue. The human had known she was there, but Pearl had been captivated already by the slow movement of their breathing, the damp shine of their eyes, the skill in their earthy hands. They were peculiar things, organics. There was no logic to them. The human left her gifts sometimes. Pearl only took them if she thought Rose would like them.

“We have to give them at the same time,” Rose declared, eyes brilliant, “This is exciting!”

Without pause, she lifted Pearl, settling her in her arms with complete familiarity. The sodden curls dripped on her, but Pearl didn’t mind, so long as it was Rose and Rose was holding her, Pearl didn’t mind so much of anything. “You have to keep your eyes closed or you’ll spoil the surprise,” Rose whispered, “And you can’t run with your eyes closed.”

Pearl huffed for the look of the thing and Rose laughed until Pearl had to smile, because Rose well knew that Pearl couldn’t even pretend to be angry or displeased with her when she was happy. Obediently, then, she closed her eyes and turned her face into Rose, let the worries and sorrows of the world fall away from her.

Rose was running, lurching, juddering, but Pearl felt only the strength of her arms, the hectic rush of the wind past her cheeks, the bony edges of her body pressed up against Rose’s bountiful, warm body. It was only until Rose held her like this that Pearl realised how cold she usually felt, a skinny little rag of bones bundled together by her will alone. Like this, it didn’t matter that Pearl would never see Homeworld again or travel the stars, in Rose’s arms with the thrill of discovery thundering through their hearts. This revelation was not new. Pearl had always known that she could do anything if it was for Rose.

A feeling came upon her, a feeling strangling and all-consuming in its intensity. Pearl squeezed her eyes tightly closed and pressed herself into Rose, with the air of Earth rushing past them and the heavy wet curls dripping water down her back, the remote stars twinkling above, the moon lighting their way, this planet that Pearl had fought and bled for, that they had sacrificed everything to carve out together. Together. They had reached their together after the war, and Pearl knew that it was every bit as beautiful as she had feverishly fought for it to be.

At some point, Rose had stopped, chest rising and falling a little faster than before. She liked to play at being organic, and Pearl never minded because it meant that she could listen to Rose’s heart thumping under her skin. Rose’s breath swirled over Pearl’s cheek, and the heavy curls shifted, revealing damp spots that chilled in the wind. Rose’s thumb smoothed wonderingly over Pearl’s shoulder. There was a pause, and then Rose carefully lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the ground, her dress rustling as she moved.

“Pearl,” she said, softly.

Reluctantly, Pearl shook her head against Rose’s shoulder and wound twig-like fingers deceptive in their strength into Rose’s hair. Rose laughed, the vibration travelling up through Pearl like a bass drum and settling into a warmth behind her gem.

“Pearl…”

“Rose.”

“We’re here, my Pearl.”

“No we’re not,” Pearl contested stubbornly.

“Open your eyes? Please, my Pearl, I know you’ll love this if you look.” And when had Pearl ever been able to say no to Rose’s voice of gentle entreaty?

Pearl opened her eyes, but she didn’t look around them, but rather right up at Rose. Rose was smiling at her hopefully, eyes shining in the light of the stars. “I already know I love what I’m looking at,” Pearl muttered, wishing she were brave enough to yell such a declaration. Even now, it made her flush, some long distant part of her screaming about conditioning and inappropriateness.

Rose’s eyes widened and she looked some cross between delighted and stunned, the way she always did. Then she bent, with great industry, to kiss Pearl, and neither of them noticed their gems glowing as bright as the moon overhead until their bodies had melted into one another’s embrace.

Rainbow Quartz sprawled over the wet grass and laughed, one hand touching the stone on her forehead, another the stone on her belly, reassuringly. “You’re here, I’m here, we’re here,” she murmured to herself, stretching with the perfect luxury of a being resplendent in her joy of existence.

At once, Rainbow Quartz’s pleasure was dashed. “I- we - she- never gave you your present! Either of you!” She closed her eyes tightly, in order to forestall seeing the vista before her, and tried not to think of the gift that Pearl had made.

In a fusion, memories and experiences flowed together like dye in a stream. Rainbow Quartz already had seen the beautiful place with the pools that flowed in from the sea, the waterfall that cascaded off the cliffs like ribbons of silver. She had already seen the mossy rocks hunched by the pool’s edge where the water fell deep and still, and their odd shape that had reminded Rose of a pointing finger. And she had already felt the carved wooden puzzle, whittled from a piece of driftwood washed up on a nearby beach and the point of Pearl’s spear, the edges smooth from determined rubbings with stones and sand, already knew the secret to fit it together.

An irrepressible laugh bubbled out of Rainbow Quartz’s mouth, half-trill, half-rumble. How like Rose and Pearl, in their excitement, to forget to give each other the gifts they had discovered! It was with no lessening of joy that Rainbow Quartz opened her eyes and wandered down to sit on the mossy rocks and dip her toes in the clear cool water, drawing the carved puzzle out of the gem on her forehead and fiddling with it until it was whole.

There was more to discovery, Rainbow Quartz knew, than showing it off.

She was a creature of between-times, Rainbow Quartz, of noon and midnight when extremes met, teetering on the cusp of either side. The flat nature of the moonlight gilded her into a silver and ivory figure of radiance, and she looked at the world with wonder and joy at each discovery, made together, made better together.  
Alone, Rainbow Quartz danced in the dark until sunrise.


	17. ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occasionally, Pink Diamond regrets ruining White Diamond. Occasionally. White/Pink.

"You have ruined me."    
  
White Diamond's voice was not the rich, glorious purr it once was. Half-cracked and rasping, it was the voice of a monster. She was shuddering with her own emotion, caught between fear, self-revulsion, despair, and a terrible desire. It manifested as tears, streaks of weakness. Pink Diamond cupped her cheek, let the dampness soak into her skin. It felt like glory. It felt like power.   
  
"Hush," Pink Diamond crooned.    
  
Her thumb smoothed over the cracks in White Diamond's lip, the place where it twisted into a flat snarl, a catlip that revealed a long yellow sabretooth. One eye, blind, stared up at her beseechingly. If Pink Diamond slid her hand along her jaw into White Diamond's hair, she would feel the scaly knobs of horns, beginning to twist their way out of her skin. There was no apology.   
  
"I am not fit to rule," whispered White Diamond, her eyes sliding away, her head slowly sagging on those proud shoulders, now bowed by shame. "You did this."   
  
"Careful," Pink Diamond, a little amused, cautioned her. The amusement was a front. Pink Diamond was a cynical and bored creature, her humour playful and sadistic, and her softness was a mask dyed into the skin - an act played for so long that it had created a dichotomy to the creature beneath.   
  
"What have I left to lose?" White Diamond demanded, on her knees before a superior youth all too ready to dethrone her, "You ruined me purposefully-"   
  
"Hush." The amusement was replaced by sharpness. Her finger, a little too red to be called pink, silenced White Diamond's lips. "I can still take your other eye." Pink Diamond warned her harshly, and drew in a quick breath, her lungs filling with air, body poised and posed to sing.   
  
White Diamond abruptly cringed like a whipped dog, her pride and rebelliousness dissolving. She cried out and pressed herself prostrate, her head  against Pink Diamond's feet, the gem with which she had conquered Homeworld and built an empire unequalled by the rest of the universe touching Pink Diamond's boot. The ancient White Diamond quivered there, helpless with terror.   
  
Pink Diamond exhaled the breath in a long, silent sigh. Perhaps it was regretful. "I-"    
  
She stopped. Was there any use asking whether White Diamond actually thought she'd meant the experiment to go so terribly wrong? It had been an experiment in purification, a sort of factory-reset that would rehabilitate Gems exposed to traumatic experiences through their work by refining a gem to their basic purpose through use of a song, excluding all useless additions. Pink Diamond had had some limited success. The gems she had tested had grown initially very single-minded and completed their tasks at an unprecedented skill and swiftness. Why, if that efficiency could be brought to bear in all of Homeworld, a single gem could do the work of three. The resource crisis, looming, would be forever stamped out. Eventually, however, the effect of the song tapered off. But White Diamond-   
  
Pink Diamond remembered the screaming. Even worse, the half-warped howling that followed. She had respected the gem that had agreed to her little experiment with the tired, humouring look in her eye that White Diamond once had when Pink Diamond coaxed her into "just one little test run, she was onto something this time, it wouldn't take five seconds!" Pink Diamond did not respect the gem that had crawled out, whimpering and weeping, half-warping, kept stable only by Pink Diamond's voice firmly reminding her who she was, gripping her shoulder, keeping her grounded. White Diamond forced her not to.   
  
Opportunistically, she'd taken control. What Diamond wouldn't? If Yellow Diamond had been in her place, White Diamond probably would have been publicly shattered for being an abomination to gemkind.    
  
It was easier to assume control when White Diamond seemed to have gained all the qualities of a pearl. She was a masterless, muttering thing, craving the stability and reassurance that Pink Diamond could provide. It was increasingly harder to remember to afford Pink Diamond's throwaway dancing toy and her fallen lover and technical superior differing amounts of respect.    
  
But in truth, should Pink Diamond simply forget all that White Diamond had been, and accept the advance it had given her in the present? The Earth colony was proceeding excellently and her experimental bodyguard gem, Rose Quartz, made an efficient interim lieutenant. Pink Diamond wasn't even required to be in attendance most of the time. She'd only returned to White Diamond's palace in order to bring another little white pearl back with her in order to smooth over the rifts that White Diamond's dancing, singing gift had ripped between the ranks of Pink Diamond's quartzes.    
  
A scowl crossed her face at the reminder, and soured her mood enough that she kicked White Diamond aside, sending her sprawling. White Diamond's clawed left hand grated harshly on the floor as she caught herself, and she cringed at the sound, curling in on herself in abject self-loathing.   
  
Pink Diamond stormed up to the throne White Diamond usually occupied and threw herself across it, arranging legs and arms in odd, unsanctioned positions. White Diamond uncertainly remained where she knelt, her old mind struggling to adjust to Pink Diamond's mercurial moods.   
  
That little pearl! It would be fine, if Rose Quartz wasn't so obsessed with the ugly little creature with its big round blue eyes and seeming inability to walk without making a spectacle of itself. And what Rose Quartz adored the rest of them wanted too, and before Pink Diamond knew what was about the quartzes were pitching battles to decide who got to throw the skimpy creature around the dance floor each night, the pearl watching the fights, as if she were some proud Diamond enthroned in her Sky Arena! The temerity astonished her.   
  
"I ought to shatter the troublesome pebble," Pink Diamond muttered to herself.   
  
The reaction in White Diamond was immediate and dreadful. Her head snapped up, her canny old mind churned into sudden fear. No doubt she had misinterpreted the contextless words to mean herself, for at once she rose and made her way, matter of factly, to kneel before Pink Diamond again, pressing close and laying her palms atop Pink Diamond's knees. There was some self-preservation in the half-dead bat after all, Pink Diamond thought approvingly, and saw no reason to disprove White Diamond of her misunderstanding when she opened her mouth to sing, pretty as a pearl.   
  
Even half-corrupted, the song of a flawless Diamond was powerful beyond measure. Pink Diamond sank back against her foremother's throne, and petted White Diamond's hair absently. It would have been difficult to justify the emotion she felt then as anything like regret.


	18. belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl kidnaps White Diamond. (Set in post-plot free Earth.)

"Belonging..." Portentous, thick rasp. White Diamond slumped ponderously on her throne like a ragged sheet and her legs thudded down like swollen tusks of stained ivory. One eye boiled with madness. The other was vapid, pearlescent. Empty. Her breathing was inflexible, sack-lungs studded through like thin parchment gnawed to nothing by moths. She stared vacantly through chipped china and glazed porcelain, and spoke through thick, stumbling tombstone teeth.

  
"Is... to belong. I... own Homeworld." Laboured suck. Gasp. Vacant twitch of the blind eye. Dust cascaded down from her stiff marble face, pit stops and railway tracks. Trapline, switch-line, flatline. There. Rockdust mould beading on rust. "It... owns me."

  
Pearl waited for her to finish out of a faded sort of pity, arms folded - belligerently, of course, skinny chest thrown out and chin tilted up, stinking of human and earth and ship oil. Beside her, Connie paced like a lowslung panther, the only one whose wholly human ears were immune to the thunderous siren call of diamondsong, eyes glim-flitting around the room, watching the blind gems that watched her fearfully. Her scarred lip curled - frightfully organic.

  
Pearl's protector. The knight of Pearl's honour. They'd laughed about it on the ship up. Centi'd goggled at them through the mirrors and clicked and clacked that maybe Pearl oughtn't be doing this sort of thing. Still.

  
Discomfort grubbing in her like half digested earth food, Pearl had twisted into song. Connie had translated it as sort of like going to see an ailing grandmother whose principles hated yours but whose blood bled in yours anyway. After years under Pearl's tutelage, she was better at understanding pearlsong than the Cured; the corrupted lived songless, inharmonic lives of dysfunction.

  
"You... belong... to me." With every air out of White Diamond's stiff marble lips Pearl could taste faint diamondsong, the tinny jags of old organs and wailing omnichords. It made her gem pulse. She didn't protest. Connie walked a circle around her, the conniesong lilted into a snarl. It was a sweet gesture. "And... I belong... to you."

  
"As it has always been," Pearl concurred. "Here." Pointed. "On Earth, we have Equals. I belong to no one."

  
"I have... never been... someone's... Equal," throbbed White Diamond, a little mournfully, under the old, plaintive wail of diamondsong. Her spine crumbled under the weight of her crowned head, emblazoned with a dirty whiteish diamond the colour of pus oozing out of an infected wound. She was atrophying, her tongue a bloated corpse in a dusty mouth.

  
"Come to Earth," said Pearl, recklessly. The universe jerked, resettled itself with a bureaucratic huff. Conniesong jilted to a pianokey screech of surprise. Judging by the irregular gurgling in her gem, pearlsong was no better.

  
"She ....was shattered ....there!" White Diamond protested wetly. Her mad eye rolled in its socket, pugnacious with fever. The blind one dimmed in hatestruck milky-poison. Briefly, a glot of diamondsong slapped at Pearl, but it was tarnished and near-atrophied. Still though, pearlsong quavered in a plucky high register of plinks while Pearl fought her reaction.

  
"I see now why I was so blindsided when Rose died," she commented instead, plainly and desertly.

  
"I liked ....feeling us mourn ...together," White Diamond sulked, an exasperated rasp of punctured accordions. Her mad eye searched soullessly for salvation, found Pearl instead.

  
A rumbled hiss of frustrated bemusement altered the pearlsong, tinted through with a soft, musical note of understanding. The bones of harmony. "Don't tell me you were equating Rose to Pink Diamond for all these years," said Pearl, tiredly.

  
"The way ....they treated ...us was the ...same," White Diamond offered, bitterblack diamondsong climbing into a shriek as she spoke. "Pushed aside ...always for some ...passing fling, ...manipulated-"

  
Connie glanced awkwardly between Pearl and White Diamond; then she crept, just as awkwardly, out of their way, let this brutal baring of self continue. Pearl blessed her for her sensibility even as she damned her for her sensitivity. She wouldn’t want to be caught between such an argument herself, but without Connie to stand in front of her, the perfidious plucks of diamondsong were aggravatingly clearer.

  
"They were nothing alike," said Pearl defensively, knight-trained fingers twitching for a sword, a spear. "Rose loved me. Rose never tried to break me. And I moved on."

  
White Diamond's chin sunk low on a froth of greyish white hair. Limp strands latticed her face behind the lamp of her mad eye. She peered at the world from behind a filmy mask, and struggled to parse it through an ancient brain curling with dust, like rolled up faxes left to rot in abandoned post offices, messages unsent.

  
"Break... me..." White Diamond murmured thickly. "She... did at ... that..."

  
"You could stand to talk to Jasper," muttered Pearl. "Come to Earth. Confront it - get closure." Order now. No requests. She was the Renegade, good at being the opposite of what she was supposed to be. "Whoever is in charge now will manage without you. You've not ruled as a Diamond in centuries - you're half solidified into rock. Give it a decade or two and they'll be scoping you out for a kindergarten."

  
Lethargy warred with insulted pride and won. White Diamond's eye shuttered and opened, oozing lashes clumped together and making audible, damp smacks when she blinked. Rheumatic, they struggled to focus. A lax hand spasmed. Palpably, she gave up.

  
"...Why?" White Diamond creaked, helplessly, hopelessly. The diamondsong oozed sluggishly behind it - screechy, scratchy accordions that climbed Escher stairways to nowhere. It was an embarrassing display. Pearl saw Connie cringe, felt a little defensive in spite of herself.

  
"Why...?" Pearlsong faltered, a bare skip in the infatuated fluency of pianokeys. "You're heartsick," she said, at last, opting for shardsharp honesty. "You have been for a long time. You need help and you're not going to get it on Homeworld. Steven... would want me to help you. That's what the Crystal Gems do. It's what we are."

  
"Ste-ven..." White Diamond puzzled through the name, uncertainty halting in the thick crease of her eyebrows, worn chalky with time. Diamondsong spluttered apologetically.

  
"You ceded his right to govern Earth as a direct descendent of Pink Diamond's lieutenant," Pearl said, flatly.

  
"You.... love... Ste-ven," White Diamond offered, meekly.

  
Pearl scowled. "I do love Steven, very much. But you can stop that, leech."

  
"Sym-bi-ote," White Diamond corrected gently. With faded enthusiasm, she rasped, "...My... Pearl!"

  
"I belong to no one. Focus!" she snapped. An undeniable fact. Her Pearl. Her Diamond. Inextricably linked. Symbiotic. But Pearl had been in the business of denying it for over six thousand years, had reforged herself alone. And she belonged to no one.

  
White Diamond cringed brokenly, a flop of mucus-glued hair slipping over the oozing blind eye. She shrilled pathetically, a shrivelled vulture fallen from the nest. Featherless like a plucked pheasant. Defenseless against Pearl. Really, if Connie and Pearl harmonised, they could destroy the oldest matriarch of Homeworld with ease.

  
"Come with me," Pearl said. Her pearlsong waxed stronger, near filled the room with musical echoes, and she mustered the bravery to walk close to the throne upon which the sickly Diamond had entombed herself. Conniesong supported her with a gentle, undercutting melody.

  
Pearl took strength from that, and put her hand on White Diamond's knee.The dusty coat was fragile with age, crumbled up under her gentle hand like ash. This close, Pearl heard White Diamond's rattling, malodorous breath, could smell the wretched decay of her, hear the mucus dribbling out of her eyes as it splatted against the rock throne. The mad eye was glaring at her furiously, but the blind eye looked tremulous. The diamondsong struggled up again, scratchy gramophone recording of a once battle cry.

  
"Return to Earth with me today," Pearl entreated. "Come meet the other Crystal Gems again. If you stay here, you will fade away."

  
At some point, Pearl realised that she would have to confront this latent pity for White Diamond. Perhaps it was due to some misbegotten sympathy - Rose had never, never been as staggeringly cruel to Pearl as Pink Diamond had gloried in being to White Diamond, nor would she even have dreamed of intentionally hurting Pearl, but the same flaws of miscommunication hunted them both. Perhaps it was that quiet little bridge between a pearl and the gem they were made for - a little connection for anticipating wishes before they fully formed, for a foundation of deep respect and loyalty. Perhaps it was simply that Steven had ushered Pearl into being a more forgiving and gentle person. Perhaps it was because somehow, she resented the other Diamonds leaving White Diamond here to rot away in madness. Perhaps it was because some part of Pearl was pleased to see how one little Renegade had helped set off events that had so wrecked the formidable gem that Pearl remembered serving.

  
"It was your word that gave us Earth," she said, instead. "Let me show you the planet you saved."

  
White Diamond sniffled rankly. "She... died...there..." she said, in a confused, meandering voice, a directionless river, a journeyless path.

  
"Well, I'm not really giving you a choice," said Pearl, kindly. Connie snorted with laughter behind her and Pearl shot her a remonstrating look over her shoulder.

  
"Sorry," said Connie, unapologetically. "But Pearl, you'd be a terrible doctor."

  
"...No," said White Diamond, suddenly insistent. She was peering vaguely over Pearl's head, in the vague direction of Connie. "Good... doctor. My... Pearl... is ... the best... design-"

  
"Yes, yes," Pearl muttered sarcastically, "Great creator of gems as you are. Get up." She yanked on the coat. It tore like wet leaves beneath her hand.

  
Nonetheless, White Diamond seemed to be mustering herself for movement, a great clockwork behemoth ticking slowly to life. Her dribbling blind eye ranged unfocused over the silent stentorian pillars of her gem guards, white-haired quartzes stooped low like thieving beggars.

  
They hadn't reacted at all to anything in the room, and as Pearl listened, she ascertained why. There was no song. They'd turned to solid rock just as their Diamond slowly atrophied, entombed together in this grand old throne room painted in dust.

  
Dimly, White Diamond's perception found them with the flimsy, rubbery grasp of the half-mad. After a moment, she seemed to conclude that they wouldn't stop her from leaving her self-imposed prison, and began the laborious, exhaustive process of working the giant body out of the throne. She squalled wordlessly, too weak to break out.

  
"Use your momentum," Connie suggested. "Lean forward - yeah, til you're hanging over the edge of the- whoah!"

  
White Diamond had too-vigorously followed Connie's advice. She was sliding ponderously forward out of the throne, her cataract milky eyes struggling to focus on the floor as it abruptly swooped towards her face and the vulnerable gem on her forehead. There was no telling how fragile she was after all these years of neglect. Pearl swallowed her disgust and felt it settle like rocks in her queasy stomach - then sprung forward.

  
There was no Diamond built who was too much for her pearl to handle. Despite their disproportionate size, Pearl supported the rotting brocade shoulder, the hard ridge of her epaulette digging into her uncomfortably. White Diamond's head dipped on a lax neck and her matted knots of stringy hair limped around them, like ropes dangling against her skin. The vile stench of sickness and death hung around her like a shroud.

  
"Well done!" cried Connie, supportively, leaping to help bolster the other shoulder. Propped up between them, White Diamond's sunken head didn't touch the floor. A string of filmy goo wept from her blind eye, thick and distorted. The diamondsong eeped in the back of hearing like a persistent text alert, quiet and ignored. Conniesong was easily louder, supportive low notes that drew, instinctively, on the higher tune of pearlsong - they were nearly harmonising.

  
It still felt a little odd to think of humans harmonising with gems, of fusion with humans. But much more natural to Pearl, these days, no longer so inappropriate. Especially after - well. Pearl had told White Diamond that she’d moved on from Rose.

  
Working together, they coaxed White Diamond forward, one long thin arm slung over each of Connie and Pearl's entire bodies, knuckles dragging like a big dumb ape. One of White Diamond’s hands had corrupted into something like a paw, thick and scaly, with dulled black-tipped claws that screeched on the floor as Pearl dragged it. Spiny protuberances dug into her shoulders and back as White Diamond shifted. The weight was not insubstantial, but both Connie and Pearl were used to defying tougher things than themselves, and this was common.

  
White Diamond's breath rasped and clawed like acid-vapour, accompanied with ugly glots of gurgling from centuries of fluid in her lungs. Displaced, it frothed and seized violently. She moved her knees, painfully, in an assisted crawl. Rock splintered and collapsed in ragged cobwebs of white fabric and dust. They passed the unseeing eyes of a jasper.

  
Connie darted out from under White Diamond’s shoulder with unspoken consent to open the great doors that to the throne room. Pearl had been created to walk these hallways, and instinctively she pushed them around the lesser-used paths of the mighty marble labyrinth. Dust clogged everything, dust and pearl shards. Inside the walls, there were faded echoes of hisses and the tap of corrupted claws.

  
Conniesong was jilting, evidently unnerved. Diamondsong had faded into a dim, intermittent pulse, leftright - leftright - leftright. But pearlsong was strong and vibrant. It had to be. Ringing out like a battlecry, it swallowed the other, faint, corrupted songs that only Pearl was aware enough to hear.

  
Broken piano wailings, missing keys, missing minds. A mad one, in that junction just there, cracked and trapped under the aslant wall. Thousands of years had passed and the mad pearl had been left to decay in her silent tomb. She’d worn her hands down to wrist stumps scratching at the walls, begging to be let out. There. An inharmonic screech. A corrupted one, caught in the backlash, slithering through burrowed tunnels with gritty claws and a long, supine body. Another. And all around, shards.

  
Pearl walked through a graveyard of her sisters and held their murderer up with one shoulder. White Diamond’s filmy eyes lifted blearily from the floor and her rhythm stumbled. For a moment, diamondsong juddered with a faded echo of power, and the shriek of accordion silenced every last little piano in the walls. The mad palace grieved with its mad Diamond, and together they had decayed.

  
Unknowing of the silent exchange, Connie announced that she was thoroughly lost and hoped that Pearl knew where she was going. A cough spluttered out of White Diamond’s throat and killed any response Pearl might have made.

  
Memories were written in every wall. Faceless memories that could have belonged to any pearl serving here, but were branded into her gem like the remembered lavisicious brush of hands over her skin and eyes over her body as she danced. She bit her lip and set her jaw. Now was not the time for such wanderings.

  
Not while conniesong still thundered cheerfully along with all the untouched purity of a child’s stamping feet, though her own blade had bitten deep into the light of gem bodies, and her hands had found gemshards instead of games. She would always be somehow Connie, Pearl’s closest pupil, for in her Pearl had taught along her ethos, her drive, her philosophy, and only Connie had understood it then as she did now.

  
The procession through the palace was as still as a church on a Friday night. Any gems they found were long since solidified into statues of themselves. They passed a citrine curled up peacefully against an amethyst, entombed together in lethargy. The amethyst was gone, but the citrine’s eyes followed them dully as they passed.

  
“This is so eerie,” said Connie, breaking the pervasive silence. “Pearl?”

  
“Yes?”

  
“Are we allowed to do this?”

  
Between them, White Diamond’s sick bulk heaved and spat out phlegm. Pearl sidestepped it with a grimace. She didn’t grace Connie’s question with a reply.

  
The walk down to the docks was deserted too. There never were any gems working here anymore. Imports and exports to the moon wherein White Diamond’s primary residence was built had been completely shut off by Blue and Yellow Diamonds some thousands of years ago, discreetly, diverting trade, altering orders, until it came to be that only Pearl had visited the ailing matriarch and her palace in five thousand years.

  
Maybe in the interim of that time, gems had snuck away to have their trysts and lovers here, became infected in the soul deep depression of the place hanging around like miasma. There were skeletons of their getaway ships scattered through the gargantuan docks like rotted out carcasses picked clean by carrion pearls. Great troughs worn by scaly bellies and dark holes pitted in the ground were warning enough of those dangers. The air here was very still and stale, and their footprints in the dust were as unmistakable as bell tolls.

  
Centi’s ship, luminous green, was docked in the closest station to the palace. Its lights glowed cheerily like a beacon. The lime green halo was unflattering to everyone, but it was light and company and life after the deathly stillness of the palace. The hatch slid open.

  
Connie and Pearl bullied White Diamond’s rotted bulk into the ship with a great deal of pushing and encouragement. She did not quite fit, and though her imposing frame had withered away to rags and bone, her shoulders and oozing head had to be pushed in first, and then her rattling hips and dust-smeared legs. Connie cried out in dismay when she found pearl shards driven into White Diamond’s knees from where she had knelt on them, and too insensate with her madness, had not registered the pain. Pearl uncharacteristically shuddered away from touching the ashes of her former sisters, and went quickly to the pilot’s cockpit to forestall the realisation that she was avoiding such a task.

  
“We have a passenger,” she said, with every attempt at drollery. Centi’s head of shaggy white hair lifted and she turned herself about in the chair.

  
White Diamond’s great head was visible from the cockpit, her fetid breath barreling up into the small ship remorselessly. Her blind eye was the side closest to the ceiling, and it ran continuously, dripping mucus from her eye and nose down her cheek to the floor. But the mad eye burned all the brighter for the infestiminal shade, and when Centi looked at her, White Diamond’s craggy mouth broke open to show her crumbled teeth. “Hello,” she rasped, with a hint of watery predator somehow stamped into the half-attempted purr. Diamondsong suddenly thrilled, low and deep, and Centi shrieked in animal terror.

  
Before Pearl knew what she was about, she’d ripped the harness from herself and tore out of the cockpit into the cabin. There was an unmistakeable sound of a lock slamming shut.

  
“That wasn’t very nice,” Connie told White Diamond sternly. “She’s our only pilot.”

  
“I’m… not… nice…” White Diamond coughed out bluntly, the force of her hacking coughs shaking the ship.

  
“I can fly this ship,” asserted Pearl confidently. How hard could it be? And privately, she felt a little guilty that she had forgotten that Centi would probably find the unexpected addition of a Diamond… unnerving.

  
“Best… design…” White Diamond muttered quietly, and Pearl shot her a glare over her shoulder.

  
“That’s quite enough out of you! And I'm only doing this to aggravate the other two. I still don't trust Blue Diamond’s supposed change of heart about letting her pearl free.”

  
“Belonging… is to belong… Blue cannot own… without being owned.” White Diamond blinked slowly and her crumbling mouth formed a jagged smile of knowing. The Diamonds were never above their own system, after all.

  
“I certainly didn't come here to talk philosophy with a mad gem. Be quiet - and don't crush Connie, she's human and fragile.”

  
Centi’s ship lifted slowly from the dock. Pearls were oozing out of the palace gates, half-corrupted, iridescent pale scales gleaming and glittering with all the vibrancy of a morgue. The green ship shot overhead and arrowed up into black space. Tinny, ancient alarms began to broadcast.

  
As she set a course for Earth, Pearl wondered how long it would take for Blue and Yellow Diamond to discover that she had kidnapped her former master. 


	19. emergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue Diamond emerges defective. She discovers that she is not as alone in facing White Diamond's hatred as she thought she was.

The embryonic memory of light and heat stirred the incubating gem from where she lay cocooned in the soft giving womb of the earth. A bare press of awareness intruded in on her peaceful solitude, an urge older than the injectors that had fertilised her mothering earth, an urge which persisted, despite her reluctance, to whisper suggestively of the world outside the earth, which she could take form and explore. The earth which surrounded her young gem was drained and dead, crumbly and lifeless; it would be easy to push her way out.

The gem resisted; even then, there was some awareness that something had gone terribly wrong. Warmth and peace and comfort were nascent ideas, written into her, and as her awareness grew, confined within her stone, they began to be replaced with others like frustration, and desire. These new emotions were timid and weak, fragile like a newborn foal. Yet like a foal, they had found their root in her, and grew, furling leaves that eventually pushed the reluctant gem from the protective carcass of the soil that had nurtured her parasitic pregnancy with its life.

Blue Diamond emerged for the first time amidst the total deprivation of utter dark, and utter cold. The blinding light of her coalescing form burned brighter than a star, but cleared as quick as lightning, leaving behind the ominous thunder of deep cracks zigzagging their way through the planet’s chipped thin mantle. The booming cracks did not bother her, secure as she was in the timid complacency of a newborn.

The barest wisp of heat curled from her emergence, smoke peeling off uncovered blue skin that was as dark as the black sky overhead like sodden clothes. Her bare toes dug tracks in the dead and waterless soil. She marvelled at the tender breath of still air against her prickling new skin, but faintly, as if the impression had come in some vivid dream that nonetheless felt phantasmagorical, as if it might vanish upon closer inspection.

There had been an entire cliff prepared for her emergence. In the darkness, its stony breasts rose into shadow, marked with cracks like old veins. An entire cliff to be ripped asunder by the emerging fury of a new, young Diamond, raw from the earth, fresh in the victory of her birth. The slender, neat silhouette of the still cooling hole was barely half the size of the whole cliff. She was too little, too late.

Her nascent memories whispered to her of other gems. In vain, and not daring to leave the safety of her hole, Blue Diamond peered into the velvety black. With the ineffable logic of the very young, she decided to wait, and settled at the edge of her hole, her small bare toes not even touching the ground.

It was silent, and dark, and cold. The stars above were dead things, and the sun didn’t rise. Time passed, and Blue Diamond waited, passively, for gems who did not come. And as the time slowly ground by, the darkness and the cold and the silence went into her, possessed her, changed her and was changed by her, and never again went out.

* * *

White Diamond came in a rictus of noise. The ship she flew had engines that purred and spluttered over the tar black skies, blotting out the stars like a pale shadow. The gems she commanded had pounding footsteps that thundered in small pocked vibrations through the crumbling earth. The winds she brought with her moaned and wailed a song of supremacy, the cape she wore snapped and flapped in the straining winds. The sound the dirt made as it whispered over older and stronger dirt was drowned out by her thunderous voice, like the celestial whip of heaven coming to brand the sinner.

Blue Diamond watched, silently. She remained, perched in her hole, and waited for them to notice her. She recognised White Diamond immediately, the proud martial drumbeat of her gemsong accentuated by the clatter and clink of the polished ornaments she wore, like gladiatorial trophies. White Diamond hunted Blue Diamond like a bloodhound, her pale eyes as sharp and furious as newly forged sword when she saw her, meekly awaiting White’s arrival.

White strode to her, and Blue Diamond’s first experience of touch was thick steel bands wrapping around her arms, lifting her from her hole, and suspending her, legs kicking, helpless, mid-air before White’s bitterly furious and disappointed face. She was nearly twice Blue’s size, and very strong – strong enough to crush her like a soft and overripe fruit between her massive hands. Blue dangled at her mercy, and felt fear awaken like dark and shameful secret she stared into the remorseless, cruelly noble face of the leader of Homeworld. On her forehead, proud and bold and arrogantly bright was the glittering, flawless white diamond that was her essence and being. It was utterly perfect.

**_“DEFECTIVE!”_ **

White’s roar was so loud that it whipped the hair from her face and sent it snapping back like a pennant. She quivered wordlessly, struck dumb with the sudden revelation that she did not match up to expectation. Blue’s silence and solitude had not prepared her for this, so instead she shrunk in on herself, felt herself become as transparent and invisible as water.

“Look at you,” White hissed in virulent disgust, dropping her at once as if her defect was infectious, “too small – look at that, _impurities smeared all over you…“_

She said it like it was a dirty curse, as if Blue had manifested her physical form streaked with shit instead of the pale yellow stripes and banding that she had dared think almost beautiful before. White Diamond didn’t think they looked beautiful. White Diamond seemed to think they made any sensible gem physically sick. As Blue, crumpled in the dirt, averted her eyes from White’s, she saw White’s attendants cringe away in horror and abruptly her humiliated shame crystallised. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into her hole and get away from the stares burning into her shamefully exposed skin.

“Well?” And suddenly, in a flurry of panic, Blue realised White had asked her a question. When she stared, mute with fear and embarrassment, up at White, Blue saw her contempt impossibly deepen. “Are you a witless idiot like the other one?”

“N-No, my Diamond,” Blue whispered, knowing nothing about the ‘other one’ save that anything spoken about in such violent revulsion by White Diamond was nothing like anything she ever wanted to be.

White huffed, gave a last sweep of scathing disapproval at the only home Blue had ever known, and muttered, “That’s something at least.” She gestured sharply at Blue, who shot her feet and meekly followed White as she strode back towards the awaiting ship. Much to her embarrassment, she had to run to keep up with the taller Diamond’s pounding strides. White, noticing, curled her lip into a revolted sneer.

Blue crossed her arms tightly over her chest and tried to hide the yellow stripes under her hands as best she could. Silently, she vowed to make herself acceptable, fear and shame and guilt mixing into a poisonous cocktail in her gut. All she would need would be something sharp, a moment of privacy, and she could force herself to reform as the Diamond White wanted her to be, regardless, she thought grimly, of the consequences it would enact on her.

* * *

Blue Diamond met the other Diamond three days after reforming.

White had left her in the entrance bay of the ship, shut the door, and promptly left. Blue Diamond had taken the opportunity and strangled herself with her own hair, choking and gagging on the silky stuff as she struggled to wrap it tightly enough around her neck to snap it. None of the infrequently passing gems either stopped to watch or interfere. Stretching out her physical form as she reformed had been deeply uncomfortable to the point of pain, but Blue Diamond did it without sound. And then promptly found herself without the breath to make one anyway.

Her new form was beautiful, and perfect, and utterly useless. She felt as fragile as glass, and breathing against the weight of the ship’s gravity seemed an impossible task. Her body felt long and thin like a collection of plucked sparrow bones, draped in blue cloth that hid any repulsive sign of defect. She wrapped herself in her silence and her new mysterious beauty, drawing her cloaks around her like a shield. Visibly, she was as flawless as White.

She didn’t move, she didn’t speak, instead she simply lay, passively watching the world turn about her. If Blue had had the energy, she would have been frustrated, maybe even terrified, at how relentlessly helpless her body made her. The lack of energy made the hot shame and embarrassment feel like a distant memory, Blue simply couldn’t rouse herself enough to be concerned. It felt better this way. Easier. Quieter.

Concealed in her shapeless dark robes, Blue didn’t see any reason to interrupt the other Diamond when she came.

The other Diamond slunk out of a maintenance corridor she was clearly far too big for during the quietest part of the cycle, when the entrance hall was deserted. Even the ship’s lights were lowered, and initially all Blue could see of her was two fiery bright eyes, glittering with cupidity in the darkness, the sketch gleam suggestion of golden lines, the careful movements of a massive predator aware of its own physical presence. In silence, the other Diamond stole with remarkable stealth across the room to a malfunctioning display panel Blue had watched a peridot yell fruitlessly at earlier.

It had seemed very confusing when the peridot had been attempting to fix it earlier, and had involved lots of wires and cursing. Blue Diamond had watched her blustering to the other technicians and privately resented her noisiness – the other Diamond, at least, was tolerably quiet. The other Diamond replicated the movements of the peridot earlier in the day so precisely that Blue knew they had been copied through close observation, with surprising nimbleness considering the size of her fingers. Once she had taken apart the panel and reassembled it once, she immediately did the same thing again, making some sort of change to the wiring as she did so. Again, Blue marvelled dully at the elegant precision of the giant Diamond hunching over a panel made for gems not even a quarter of her size. Blue found herself wondering why the other Diamond didn’t simply shapeshift to a more fitting size.

The other Diamond replaced the panel’s front, then gave it a supremely gentle tap. The panel hummed to life instantly, whatever faults there had been corrected.

If Blue Diamond had had the energy to frown, she would’ve. White had said the other Diamond was a witless idiot, fit for nothing. But Blue had watched the peridot struggle – a peridot, a technician gem built specifically to maintain the equipment the other Diamond, who had no innate technological skill, fixed in mere moments of the time. It was at that point but blue Diamond realised something revolutionary, white Diamond had been wrong. Completely, catastrophically wrong. The other Diamond simply should not have been capable of what she had just done.

Blue Diamond didn’t have the energy to frown, but small breath escaped her lips, almost a sigh, instead.

Instantly, the other Diamond’s head whipped up, and the two burning eyes were fixed intensely on her. Blue froze, paralysed by the fierce intelligence and alertness in the other Diamond’s golden eyes. Slowly, with great dignity, the other Diamond straightened, as if it was Blue who had just illicitly interfered with another gem’s job, in a manner unbefitting to her station or rank.

Blue said nothing. Her artificial heart lurched against her ribs in the most impassioned movement it had made since she had reformed. She was aware of her mouth drying out as the other Diamond moved slowly into the light, moving cautiously, as if Blue Diamond were a wounded animal about to lash out.

“Oh,” she heard herself say in a whisper as soft as a breeze, “you’re a yellow. Yellow Diamond.”

Yellow Diamond cocked her head, but made no sign of having understood. She was still approaching Blue, silently and softly, like a prowling lioness. When she was close enough to have reached out and touch Blue Diamond’s cheek, she stopped, and lowered herself into a crouch, tilting her head to look Blue in the eye.

Keeping her eyes intently focused on Blue’s face for any sign of objection, Yellow Diamond reached out and lightly traced a line down Blue Diamond’s throat to her collarbones, carefully shifting the fold of her robe as she did so. The slight contact from that fingertip brush seemed to burn like fiery silk – Blue wouldn’t have been surprised to know that she had felt every groove and whorl in Yellow’s fingertip as it dragged over her skin. It was the first non-threatening touch from another she had ever received, and it seemed like Yellow was reaching into the cold dark quiet heart in Blue with a fragment of heat.

Then Yellow withdrew her fingertip, and tapped it against her own gem. Blue found herself staring, perplexed. Yellow’s brow furrowed in annoyance at Blue’s obtuseness.

With a single shrug of her shoulders that belied her physical strength, Yellow tore her shirt across the back, an impatient paw tearing the garment almost entirely from herself as she turned, presenting Blue Diamond with her smooth, muscled back. Yellow glanced over her shoulder, awkwardly found one of Blue Diamond’s hands with her own, then pressed it palm down over her spine, Yellow herself involuntarily arching at the unfamiliar touch.

Blue blinked, and looked closer, trying to understand what Yellow was trying to tell her. There were dark splotches over Yellow’s shoulders and back – no, not splotches. Freckles of deep blue, spots and splashes, like a reckless painter had flicked his navy all over a perfect yellow canvas. She spread her fingers wide, ignoring Yellow’s curious shiver. Blue’s hand was dark against Yellow’s skin, apart from the pale line of a yellow stripe curving up the inside of her forearm, bared by her fallen robe.

It took a moment for her to understand. Blue inhaled. “Parts of me in you, parts of you in me.”

Yellow Diamond blinked at her, apparently recognising she had understood. A catlike smile curled her lips.

“You don’t talk,” said Blue. “C-Can you, or –?”

In a surprisingly resonant voice, Yellow murmured, evidently unsurely, “Diamond?” She pointed at Blue. “Yes?”

“I am Blue Diamond. Don’t – do you know _anything?”_

Yellow’s mouth half-quirked. _“Defective,”_ she snapped in a fair imitation of White Diamond’s voice, then rolled her eyes heavenward to show just what she thought of that assessment.

Before Blue Diamond quite registered it, she heard herself making an odd sound she hadn’t recognised from herself. After a short pause, she identified, incredulously, as laughter. Yellow’s answering chuckle was as deep and mellifluous as golden honey.

* * *

 

White Diamond entered the room like a hurricane. Where there had been calm silence, the two of them resting against one another, there was suddenly the presence of greatness, utterly overpowering.

Yellow Diamond had been holding her, Blue’s skinny cold frame resting flush up against the unyielding warmth of her, Yellow’s strong but uncertain voice asking fumbling questions. She seemed to know seemingly unconnected scraps of words, commands mostly, like “get out of the way”, “go away”, and “defect”. But once Blue had indicated that she was fine with the questions, they seem to pour out of her like neverending flood, inquisitive bright golden eyes shining like two round pennies, like two suns on the verge of supernova. Blue had found herself not caring. The incessant questions were worth it for the warmth and the gentleness. She felt safe with Yellow Diamond.

The door banged shut behind White, like a thunderclap. Her cloak swirled and snapped around her ankles like a badly behaved and mean-eyeddog, and the slant of her scowl, as always, was pale and furious. Her face, when she saw them in an embrace, visibly twisted into a sneer of disgust and revulsion. She looked so honestly revolted that for a moment Blue feared that she would throw up. At her back, Blue felt Yellow become rigid, every muscle tensing.

“Look at you both,” White Diamond breathed with the venom of a snake, evidently repulsed. “I come to tell you that we are close to docking, and I find you entwined like two common pearls, senseless and spineless!”

“I – my diamond –“ Blue forced the words, but trailed off under White’s withering glare. The silence swelled up within, filling her throat, suffocating sharp. Yellow said nothing, instead, she ducked her head away, looking for all the world like a kicked and whipped dog fearing the disapproving strike of her master.

White Diamond held up a hand, slowly taking in a long breath as if to calm herself. She rubbed around her gemstone on her forehead, as if splitting migraine had suddenly taken up residence there. Then she gestured at them, dismissively, helplessly.

“How can I bring you back before my gems? How can I ask them to respect you as diamonds? Two ugly defects – I should just shatter you before you bring shame upon my name.”

Yellows arm’s around her tightened protectively. They spoke in the same breath, Yellow’s harsh flat “ _NO_ ” _,_ more snarl than word, almost drowning out Blue’s gasped “You can’t!”. Emboldened by Yellow’s support, Blue found the words falling out of her without her control, “I won’t let you touch her-!”

Suddenly, she realised that she had issued a direct challenge to White Diamond herself. She shrank back, shaking. Surely she would be shattered now. Blue berated herself – idiot, what was she thinking, speaking to White, perfect supreme White, like she had a right to exist, like she had a right to argue against her decrees? The thought of Yellow’s fierce golden intelligence no longer surviving in the world made her gem feel itchy and chilled with discomfort and horror, but it wasn’t her place to decide. It never would be. Her emergence as a defect had cemented her position as inferior for eternity.

White threw back her head and laughed. She laughed hard, her shoulders shaking, closing her eyes, resting a hand on the wall, but all of it was done fakely, perfunctionary, as if she had once seen someone laugh genuinely and was now copying what she had observed. It was not kind laughter, it was cruel, echoing hollowly off the walls. It sounded like a death knell, and Blue found herself wondering if it was the last sound she would ever hear.

But then White said the opposite of what she expected. “You are right.”

Dimly, through the wall of her own confusion, Blue heard Yellow say clearly and distinctly, _“What?!”_

Grinning, a cold and nasty grin, each tooth sharp and white like the scythe of death, revelling in the power she held over them, White Diamond look down on them, almost with pity, almost with amusement, as if their very existence was a cosmic joke. “Too much diamond blood spilled already,” she said, almost contemplatively. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that you are both so defective. Purity is a value beyond the grasp of the weak. If all could attain it, it would be worthless.”

She started to chuckle again, turning with a sharp snap of her cloak, the glittering jewels she wore jingling against one another. “If this is to be our legacy, so be it. A cripple and her fool!”

The laughter of White Diamond echoed down the hallways as she left, as suddenly and momentously as she had come, and filled the silence.

The cripple and the fool held each other as the ringing echoes of the perfect Diamond’s mockery faded away. It was a cold and hollow gratitude in Blue’s heart. She did not deserve to live, was not fit to, but White had allowed her to, would raise her to live among her betters the way a cruel child tears one wing from a butterfly and watches it flap itself to death trying to join its free and light-hearted fellows.

But this was the legacy she had chosen, and Blue had never been strong-willed enough to argue against the inevitable.


	20. crossed wires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gemswap AU where Blue Diamond was shattered in place of Pink Diamond. Yellow Diamond doesn’t deal with it well. Or, in fact, at all. Warnings - self harm, disembowelment.

Given enough time, Yellow Pearl thought she could find music in the symphony of humming wires that hooked her Diamond like catgut puppet strings. If there was a rhythm in the pulse and flash of neon yellow screens discarded as quickly as they came, Pearl couldn’t find it. If there was beauty – the gleaming yellow coils, the shiny metallic surfaces, the secret pockets of darkness that flashed and flickered with the blinking lights, the dizzy streams of graphs and numbers (always numbers, declining into nowhere), haywire birds nest interlocking wires like shredded and extruded copper hairs, the low buzz of synthetics and charging sockets, sparks and glints of harnessed lightning shredding out of mutilated flesh, pierced through like a needle sewing wire-threads to stop gap oozing golden ichor, like lubricant, like blood – Pearl couldn’t find it.

She lived by the side of a mistress more machine than gem.

Yellow Diamond had pierced herself on Blue Diamond’s shards, and in the pinprick holes injected soulless things that ticked and hummed and masqueraded as enhancements. Yellow Pearl could just see the blaze of sick, sick eyes, like molten supernovae on the brink of corruption, suspended in a frantic last pulse of life while around her screens shot back and forth.

She lived by the side of a mistress who had died and was trying to kill herself all at once.

In the beginning there had been justifications to go along with the cuts, the insertions, the injections. With Blue Diamond gone, and Pink barely trained, it had been up to Yellow to step up, to shoulder the burden. But drowning under three gems’ work, Yellow had punished herself for inefficiency, for her hesitation, for her need to rest, for her need to grieve. There was no use for feeling when work had to be done. In the beginning. Now, Yellow Pearl watched her mistress delight in her modifications, delight as each bit of herself that she scraped away, drilled into, was replaced by the mechanical, make only the flimsiest pretence for cutting deeper. Yellow Pearl made the cuts, the installations. Yellow Diamond’s hands, hands that had touched Blue, were the first to go.

Yellow Pearl was made to love her, to serve her, to indulge any whim, to cheer her with her song, to make her days as easy and swift she could. Yellow Diamond’s descent into the artificial was humming, metallic proof of her failure in her existence’s purpose.

Hopefully, she waited, idling time with her back straight and eyes blind to the horrific mutilated mess of machinery, and waited to be useful again. She passed the time thinking of songs, trying to harmonise to the dull baritones of the machines, the occasional soprano lightning fissure in a frayed wire – instantly, she’d leap into action, replacing the wire almost before the fault could be felt. She lived for those moments.

Yellow Pearl had almost discarded possibility of seeing Yellow Diamond free from her self-inflicted Gordian knot until everything changed, as it was wont to do, when Pink Diamond threw a tantrum.

The doors crumpled under the sheer force of Pink Diamond’s shove like wet paper, buckling in with an exhausted groan and the shriek of tormented metal. The aggression of her momentum carried her forward a few extra steps, and she stood, silhouetted like a scarlet angel against the blaze of lurid primary colours, the raw spectrum of childhood’s cruel arrogance. Her lovely face was distorted and warped in expression both horrified and enraged.

“How _dare_ you?!”

Yellow Diamond didn’t even twitch. An omnipresent screen flashed up, obnoxious sunshine yellowy, like a waxy crayon. Neat printed black characters appeared; _Hello Pink, White._

For Pink hadn’t come alone, behind her, as stiff and silent and regal as a white marble pillar, ghosting along like something already dead, was White Diamond, her pale ivory colouring causing her to fade, washed out, like a rotting Arctic hare in winter, beads of melted ice water making her gleam, wraithlike. Ancient as she was, White only bothered to incline a stiff nod, eyes raking over the mess Yellow had made of herself with the curiosity of a child, having pulled the wings off the fly, watching the death throes of the pitiful creature.

“At least have the decency to speak to me!” Pink demanded self-righteously. She paced and jerky circle, irritation driving her to motion. Her eyes snapped and flashed, volatile with fury. “You’ve been _ignoring_ me! And for what –?! This!”

 _I am working. I am busy. There is always more to do;_ the screen read.

Pink bared her teeth. The ground rocked underneath them with an involuntary earth tremor. Pink clenched her fists. Paced an infuriated circle, like an unhinged dog straining the end of its tether. Her gemstone, her colours, rippled and glittered like greed.

“Control yourself.” White Diamond’s mouth barely seemed to move to let the papery sigh escape.

Pink ignored her, but the ground stopped shaking. She stalked closer to Yellow, resting her palms on either side in the gaps between the wires that intersected like snakebites in Yellow’s face, wriggling wires their tails.

 _“Look at me!”_ she ordered, in a tone of rising hysteria.

 _I am looking at you;_ the screen read, angling itself so the Pink could see it. Yellow Diamond’s eyes remained blankly, blindly, staring ahead whilst around her reports whizzed by like comets.

“No, you’re not!” Pink screamed. Tears beginning to run down her cheeks, tinted pinkish, like watered-down blood. She twisted, beckoned imploringly to White. “Do something!”

White glided over, moving Pink aside with a sweep of her cloak. She peered archly down at the tangled knot of wires and flesh, coldly evaluating. “If you wanted to turn yourself into a machine,” she said, flatly, “this is not the most efficient way of doing it.”

Then, with all of the casualness of a friendly pat on the shoulder, she thrust her fist through Yellow’s abdomen, organs and blood pulping between her fingers, reached up through ribcage, gripped Yelllow’s gem from the inside, and ripped it back out through her stomach. The screens blared with alarm, and then suddenly all that was left was smoke, curling off White’s fist and the yellow diamond clutched within it. Pink stared. Around them, the machinery went into hectic breakdown.

* * *

 

In the few seconds of disorientation as the blinding white of her reformation cleared, a storm of sensory information pressed in on Yellow Diamond. She could feel the wind against suddenly manifested skin, feel the pulse of her nerves working to register each new stimulus. There was heat, on her back and neck, ground, solid and dependable, under her boots. She could feel her artificial heart bounding against her rib cage, her lungs inflating with a sudden gasp of air, her tongue and nose tasting the scents of flowers and organic earth, blood pulsing around her veins. She could hear the muted presence of another gem, the harmonics of their presence intrinsically familiar, the steady movement of their breathing, like unhurried waves against the shore.

It was a state so violently different from the last one she remembered that she curled in on herself, hands pressing against her whole stomach, as if to push away the ghost pains wracking her. _Hands_. Why did she have hands? They had been the first to go –

“Yellow Diamond.” White Diamond’s voice was as familiar as a death knell.

Yellow’s head snapped up, body following in a defensive coil that she barely noticed. Her senses felt at once vibrant and dull, replete with detail, but without the machinery, inefficient and without information. She felt. It clawed like gem shards, like Blue’s shards –

White Diamond was stood, unyielding, back straight and eyes unblinking, staring at her levelly. The wind tossed her hair gently, played delicately with the severe fold of her cloak. Against the cheery green grass, brilliant with young growth and the splashes of psychedelic flowers hot with colour, she was old and grey, like a palimpsest of ancient newspapers from the dawn of time. The sun was rising behind her, like an explosion.

Yellow’s voice grated. A terrible dread was creeping up her spine. “What is this place? Why have you brought me here?”

White said nothing. She had no need to.

The ground lifted and breathed in gentle hummocks, swaying with long and uncut grass. The pulse of life in the Earth was obnoxiously present here, birds chittering in their trees, branches and leaves whispering, the wind brushing back and forth, idly stirring the pale blue curtains (stained and bleached some intermediate blue-grey after long exposure to Earth weather patterns) that leaned, curiously akimbo, out of a picked clean polished shell. The palanquin’s robotic legs were splayed like the limbs of a dead man, its hunched recess into the hill was like the crooked back of a shot crone, its blank opening gaped like empty windows, soulless eyes. Death reeked. Around it, Earth flourished. Immune to its ugliness, it flourished.

The sight of it cut Yellow down to the core. She felt herself stagger back, felt her hand reach for some sort of prop, fail, clawing blindly into empty space, felt herself fall, the earthshuddering thud. The shock of it jagged through her projection. She felt herself glitch.

Her artificial lungs were sucking in breath like she needed it, panic rendering fluttering muscles as useless as their tears had been. She didn’t need White to tell her. This was where it had happened. This was where –

Blue Diamond’s shards had had an obscene sort of beauty, their facets glittering in dark crystalline fractals, like the heart of a glacier, cracked open. Yellow could almost understand why humans cut and ground dead gems up to make them into jewellery, ornaments, like war trophies. She remembered the shards in her hands, mixing with her blood, the wires in her skin.

“Why have you brought me here?!” She roared, felt her body twisting to a pugnacious stance, teeth bared and flat, something animal in her snarl. Something brutish.

“You needed to see it.” White sounded unaffected.

Yellow became aware that the dryness in her eyes and prickle in her throat, the incandescent wash of anger, the illogical and guilty grief was exactly why White had brought her. Knowing White was right only made her angrier. The palanquin watched her pointless display blankly. It loomed over them, the ghost in its presence distant and disapproving. Was there any trace of her here?

“You are out of line!” It was almost a hiss, almost a growl.

“And you weren’t?” White crossed her arms. “They need a leader. Your behaviour has been inexcusable and unnecessary. Will torturing yourself bring her back?”

No, Yellow wanted to scream, but it made her feel better for failing Blue. If Yellow had been there – if she had done more – The guilt swelled, choking and putrid with infection. And quietly came the whisper that it should have been Yellow’s shards scattered like so much rubbish on the floor of that palanquin. Blue would have handled it better – Blue wouldn’t have drowned herself in work – they needed Blue. Yellow was just one more echo of something already dead.

“Blue Diamond was shattered because she failed. Don’t let the same fate befall you,” White Diamond told her. It was not said unkindly, simply with the total arrogant assurance in her own rightness that was as part of White as her gemstone.

A failure?!

Yellow’s rage ignited. She drew in a breath to thunder some furious reply – and found it gone. A whirlwind of air, a cyclone whipped into being around her face and head, sucking the breath from her lungs faster than she could draw in, silencing her and driving her to her knees all at once. Crackles of lightning raced ineffectually up her forearms, Yellow was aware of her body temperature increasing rapidly, aware of the grass smoking where it touched her. Flames blurred off her silhouette.

“Did she not fail to stop a lone rebel Sapphire from shattering her?” White asked, intently. She walked up to Yellow, her stride calm and measured, reached through the hurricane like it wasn’t there and cupped Yellow’s face between her white palms, like it was a formula she had memorised.

“You are grieving,” she stated. Perhaps she had learned it from Pink. “But I have shattered many gems in my day and I will not forbid myself the pleasure if you damage yourself like that again.”

Yellow stared at her numbly.  The hurricane whispered and then collapsed, and she inhaled, gratefully, and her eyes sliding away from the cold dispassion in White’s.

“Don’t you miss her at all?” Yellow asked. “How do you do it?”

“I haven’t cared about anything in years,” White remarked dryly, “except the preservation of my property.” She knelt and kissed Yellow’s brow, briefly, like the brush of snowmelt. “You _will_ move past this.”

It sounded more like an order than a reassurance.


	21. cubic zirconia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A story about an “imitation diamond” created to preserve the Authority’s image after Pink’s death. Only the few soldiers that were with her know the truth behind the mimic.   
> (Very slight body horror.)  
> UNFINISHED.

“Have you heard the rumours? They’re saying Pink Diamond’s dead. Shattered at the hands of that rebellion!”  
“The rebellion? Tsk, nothing could come of that but a pack of lies. Why, I saw her last week, on the arm of our gracious White Diamond!”  
“What, really? You’re sure? I spoke to this Jasper - served under Pink herself! - who swears…”  
“Quite certain! And you know what Quartzes are like, they’ll say anything to start a fight.”  
“But, well, don’t you think it’s a little odd that our gracious Pink Diamond lost interest in that colony on Earth so quickly…? And, the, well, the Song?”  
“I heard the Song was just an experiment. You know our gracious Pink Diamond loves her experiments.”  
“True…”  
“Well, it’s hardly as if they’ve some imitation Diamond in place to fill her shoes! You’ve been listening to the sun dreams of rubies for far too long!”

* * *

The mimic was created with a face that did not belong to it.  
The mimic was created with a life that did not belong to it.   
It emerged from the ground in a far distant hole in the deserted planet of Earth, the quadrant that later became known as Russia. Around it, there were shards of many different gem types. A greater quantity of them were pink and diamond-shaped, like the mimic’s gem. Around it, three other identical, beautiful giants stepped from their own emergence holes. One of them was missing an eye. A peridot, walking through the graveyard of cubic zirconia with uncaring aplomb, fired off a blaster at the imperfect replica and in an instant it was shattered, joining the shards in the raked earth of the diamond mine.  
The mimic stood, a little lost, with its pink skirt whipping around its pink leggings and its pink skin gleaming warmly in the light. It looked identical to the two other replicas. Only one looked back at it, with concern in its eyes that looked like the mimic’s. The mimic attempted smiling. It came naturally to this face but the mimic felt the falseness behind its teeth.   
The peridot asked questions in a grating, loud voice. She shattered the unreactive replica and moved on to its friend. Its friend answered the questions in a husky, rich voice that sounded like freshly-tilled earth and warm growth in spring, replete with summer. The peridot nodded sharply. She came to the mimic and asked questions. It answered.  
And then came the pearl.  
She was a demure, beautiful little thing, with haystack cerise hair and apple-red cheeks, freckles like strawberry starmaps and lips like silky rose-petals. She looked unbearably delicate, only reaching up to the knee of the mimic’s boot, but there was a bitter, brutal fierceness in her red blood eyes that told it immediately that her appearance was nothing but a mask.   
It sympathised with that.   
The pearl pointed at the mimic and the peridot yanked at it until it moved. Behind it, it heard the sound of its friend being crushed. It knew that because its friend screamed.  
The mimic was told to answer to ‘Pink Diamond’ and given a biography to memorise. It did so. And then it mimicked.

* * *

Yellow Diamond wouldn’t stand the mimic. She always kept herself as far away from it as possible and never touched it. The mimic did its best. Pink Diamond had been intimate with this gem and the mimic laughed and teased and flirted with Pink Diamond’s sultry voice and heavy-lidded eyes.   
Blue Diamond treated it with the same indifference that she treated everything. The mimic laughed boisterously to bring noise to her court and teased her when it could. Pink Diamond’s death was seeped everywhere in Blue Diamond’s shadows and the mimic had never felt more false around her.  
White Diamond disturbed the mimic.

Some days it seemed as if the mimic had done its job too well and White Diamond’s sickly eyes looked at it with a feverish adoration. The mimic let itself be touched, even though every scrape of the half corrupted claw of White Diamond’s left hand made it feel like gagging when it scraped Pink Diamond’s skin. But the mimic’s feelings didn’t matter so the mimic pressed Pink Diamond’s lips to the warped scales and murmured, “White, my White, how beautiful you are even in ruin.”  
White Diamond’s eyes would run then with something like diseased fluid - maybe tears, maybe pus, and the mimic learned to kiss it away from her sallow cheeks.  
Corruption wasn’t infectious, and the mimic didn’t have a self to corrupt anyway.

* * *

 

The mimic was told fragments about the Earth. The deathbed and resting place of Pink Diamond, Pink Diamond whose life loomed so large that it eclipsed the mimic. The mimic thought maybe it resented her. Maybe it loved her. The mimic was told that Pink Diamond was impossible not to love.  
It wouldn’t know. It wasn’t supposed to feel.  
It looked so small and simple from space. Earth.


	22. pearl-fect!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very young Pink Diamond decides to create her first pearl. It’s an experiment which everyone will regret.  
> UNFINISHED. (Note, this is a very early concept of PD.)

“Pink, have you ever heard the phrase ‘seeing defects in pearls and pearls in defects’?” White Diamond asked, running the tip of her finger slowly around the rim of her water glass.  
“Yes,” said Pink Diamond, tone on the edge of insolence, evidently bored. She perked up a little and smirked mischievously, “Blue says it all the time. About Yellow.”  
“Do you know what it means?”   
“Of course!” Pink hastened to say.  
White stared at her levelly. Pink’s shoulders slumped dejectedly.   
“…not,” she added, glumly, and White afforded herself a prim smile.  
Beckoning her own pearl closer, White caught the pearl’s chin in one large hand and turned her face towards Pink. “Pearls are not gems, Pink. They are designed, right down to the last character trait or scrap of knowledge, by their owner.” White Diamond tapped her pearl’s oval shaped gem, nestled in her forehead. “Even the shape of their gems can be partially altered to fit an owner’s desire.”   
Pink looked from White to the pearl, confused. “I don’t get it,” she said flatly, and White smiled her secretive little smile again.  
“Pearls are designed,” she repeated, “if you are so stupid as to design a pearl with a defect, that is your own crack to bear. A gem can never be anything other than what they are. If you treat a pearl like a quartz, it will never be more than a defective quartz. If you treat a quartz like a pearl, it will never be more than a defective pearl. As a Diamond, your job is to know the strengths and weaknesses of your gems, and to never send a ruby to do a peridot’s job.”  
Pink’s mouth fell open in a silent ‘oh’ of comprehension. She paused for a moment, staring critically at the pearl. “No,” she sighed, “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
White smiled, and ruffled Pink’s hair. “Think on it,” she said. “I have faith in you, Pink Diamond.”

* * *

“Psst.”  
Pearl stood obediently against the wall, spine ramrod straight, eyes closed, and head bowed, hands clasped demurely in front of her chest. She hadn’t moved an inch since her Diamond had told her to stay there for the meeting’s duration, even though her feet were starting to ache and her arms had grown very tired from holding them in the same position all this time.   
Pearl didn’t move, though. Pride kept her upright, even as Blue Pearl fidgeted a little beside her, and Yellow Pearl quietly, but still audibly, sighed. The Diamonds’ meeting had been dragging on for almost five and a half hours. If they’d been alone, well, then maybe Pearl would have forgiven her sisters their restlessness, but they weren’t alone.  
“I know you can hear me.”  
Resolutely, Pearl ignored the voice. Centering herself, she tried to concentrate on the rush of running water, hypnotic and repetitive, anything to distract herself from the steadily increasing stiffness in her physical form. It had become a matter of pride to see who could hold out longest between them.  
“Y’know, you don’t have to be all silent and stiff all the time. C’mon. They’re never gonna know,” the voice coaxed.  
As usual, Yellow Pearl was the first to break. “Ma’am, our Diamonds instructed us to remain here,” she snapped, her voice acerbic.  
Pearl could practically hear the smug grin.  
“Weellll, fun-buster junior, the Diamonds instructed me to stay here too, and I brought awesome snacks…” She trailed off, tantalising, and there was a silent moment of struggle before Yellow Pearl inquired, wavering, “What… sort of snacks?”  
“You know those crackers that are your absolute favourite in the whole wide galaxy? Guess who managed to acquire a whole box? Untouched, I might add. Not even by me.”   
Yellow Pearl gasped. “How did you get your hands on those?” Pearl, eyes still rigidly closed, heard the patter of her feet as she ran across the floor, and their opponent’s gleeful giggle as she ripped open the packet. There was a silence, and then the distinctive crunch of another battle lost. Yellow Pearl, guilty betrayer, hummed happily.  
“I have my sources,” said Pearl’s opponent cheerfully, and then her voice turned wheedling again. “Hey Bluey, don’t think I forgot you.” There was a rustle, and then the soft clonk of a wooden bowl being set down on the floor. “I know you like fruit, so I brought you some of that new stuff from Facet 2. All fresh! I promise. I only just took it out of its bubble. Oh, and some of your other favourites in case you don’t like them, too. I think they’re called clamergets - clammomoregets - something long and unpronounceable beginning with ‘C’.”  
For the love of the Diamonds, thought Pearl tiredly. Blue Pearl didn’t even bother to show any signs of hesitance - Pearl knew her footsteps well enough to tell when she was at least pretending that she didn’t want to break face.  
“You like those, huh?” Pearl’s opponent asked, sounding genuinely pleased, presumably to Blue Pearl. “That’s good. I’ll remember to bring those next time we’re all stuck outside a Diamond meeting. Y’know. For all of the proper Diamonds.” Her voice quickly turned bitter.   
“They didn’t even notify me this time.” Pearl’s opponent sighed gustily. “Hey, at least that means I get to hang out with you guys though, yeah? Baby-blue, you want me to peel that orange for you? It’s okay, I got it.”  
There was a pause. Yellow Pearl said quietly, “Thank you for the crackers, ma’am.”  
“You’re welcome. I’ve gotta have something to bribe someone as important as Fun Police Junior herself to hang with me, huh?”  
Blue Pearl giggled. Pearl could just imagine the look of indignation on Yellow Pearl’s face, and almost regretted being unable to see it.  
“I’m just joking, Lemonhead, it’s not your fault that you’ve got no sense of humour. I’ll never understand why everyone thinks pearls are boring company. ‘Least I know you act this way with everyone, not just with me because of the shape of my stupid gemstone.”  
Pearl stood very still and pretended to be deaf. It was a skill that a pearl became very good at, especially pearls in the service of Diamonds. Privately, she was sorely tempted to give up and join the other two pearls. There wasn’t much apart from pride holding her back. Discreetly, she tried to roll her shoulders, ease a little of the stiffness gathering there.  
“C’mon, that position is not comfortable,” Pearl’s opponent said in exasperation. “Won’t you come here and join us, Tighty-whitey?”  
Stiffening in offense at the nickname, Pearl stood rebelliously straighter. Her opponent huffed.  
“You don’t like that name, huh? Uh, what about, Tiny-white? Diamond Junior? Pale bird? I mean - with the nose and all - you still don’t like those names and I admit I’m not feeling very creative. ‘Just pearl’ sounds so dull though.”  
Pearl allowed herself to crack open an eye, fully prepared to give her opponent a scathing glare, station be damned.  
Her opponent, Pink Diamond, gave Pearl a giant, self-satisfied grin. “Hey there, Just Pearl. Knew you’d give in eventually.”  
The towering Diamond, the height of three pearls stacked together when standing, was sat cross-legged on the floor, an earnest sort of expression on her noble face, surrounded as it was by her magnificent quiff of candyfloss pink hair, flyaway as a haystack. The rose coloured diamond on her stomach gleamed faintly in the lights overhead. At either side of her sat the two pearls, Yellow Pearl perched on a huge box of crackers with crumbs all down her front, and Blue Pearl determinedly forging her way through a mountainous platter of fruit with all the power of an industrial processor. For such a tiny pearl, she could eat a surprising amount.   
“I brought something for you, too, but you don’t have to try it if you don’t want to,” said Pink Diamond, hurriedly reaching behind herself. Gingerly, she lifted a tray that looked very, very tiny in her huge hands, but would be just about pearl-sized. On it was a bottle, and a little cup. “It’s this nectar stuff one of Blue’s quartz patrols found the other day. Non-toxic and everything, but it tastes quite sweet and it disappears completely in an hour once the bottle is opened.”  
Pearl pointedly closed her eyes again. Pink Diamond trying to bribe them was all well and good, but Pearl wouldn’t ever disobey her Diamond. If White Diamond wanted her pearl to try the nectar, she would bring some and give it to her directly. Pearl was obedient.   
“Aw, come on, Just Pearl. Don’t make me pull the authority card on you.”  
That made Pearl open her eyes. For all of Pink Diamond’s eccentricity, she was still a Diamond, and therefore perfectly within her rights to order gems to do as she pleased. Pink Diamond grinned hopefully at her. “Come over here,” she said. “Try a little of this fun-juice.”  
Pearl relented.  
She had no idea in three short hours that she would regret one activity quite so much.


	23. This is what you came for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Song name: this is what you came for Calvin Harris ft rihanna name: pearl" - request from tumblr user @icypearls.

Pearl dances in a box.

She twists herself, contorts herself, makes a show of her elegant and flexible limbs. The light caresses, sweetly as any forbidden lover, the gleam of her gem, her eyes, her skin, beautiful, untouchable. The unbearable tease of her fragile silks are torturously intact behind the translucent barrier.

Their meaty fists pound the barrier, forcing shockwaves to ripple through the light, distorting her image. Their eyes, all dark and dim underneath their shaggy manes of hair, watch her greedily, with the brutal lusts intrinsic to fighting type gems. With the ease of practice, she blocks out the crude demands and jeering and focuses on the sweet strains of a piano only she can hear. They all want the same.

She teases them. It’s what she’s there for. But she is not theirs to touch, nor hers to give.

There’s one gem that chooses to hang back in shame, ducking vivid cheeks when Pearl looks at her - half-lidded, faux sultry, a little bored - and Pearl wonders who taught her to be ashamed of appreciating the beauty of White Diamond’s design. She is always there when Pearl alone dances, disappearing before Pearl can convince herself to drop the barrier and let them seize her in one glorious shattering moment, a violent, lustful death for a creature bred in white silence and waiting rooms.

Pearl wonders what the gem bothers to come for, if she only stays to look at her.


	24. mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I suggest 'Mercy' by IAMX and Yellow Diamond" - request from tumblr user @psykopsy. Contains platonic D/s and BD/YD.

Diamonds were created to dominate and control. But Yellow Diamond had been born with the passions of a Diamond but not the mind, and Blue Diamond the mind but not the body. Yellow Diamond’s gem did not contain the capabilities of every gem she would rule coded in, or the unique ways they needed and responded to leadership. It had seemed natural, as a young gem, to listen, learn, and obey Blue Diamond, who relied upon her strength, loyalty, and inventiveness utterly.

But without the mind of a Diamond, Yellow expressed their instincts in unprecedented ways. And sometimes, it was nice not to have to control everything, to think of everything; after all, expression was a part of healthy control.

“You’re so much more than she thinks you are,” Blue Diamond murmured, barely distinguishable from the water trickling gently to the bases of fountains around her. In her eyes there was the same dull passivity as there always was. This was never for her. Yellow knew the only reason she continued to pity Yellow was for the power Yellow’s allegiance afforded her. She was working on not caring.

“You’re unique.”

Yellow towered uncomfortably over her from where she sat, hooded and cowled, in her palanquin. Her gem, defective to the core, itched and ached. She breathed.

“Blue,” she whispered, and it sounded only a little like weakness, “I need-”

‘To not feel like a failure, to be validated, to not think’, there were answers enough for Blue to take her pick and she’d heard them all before.

Blue gestured, and her fingers found Yellow’s hair and tugged, so faintly it could be mistaken for the breeze whispering over the walls. Yellow Diamond went willingly to Blue’s feet, Blue’s hand remained in her hair, comforting. Yellow closed her eyes, felt relaxation unwind stiffly in her tense muscles.

“Your existence is not the mistake she thinks it is,” Blue lied softly.

It was so very hard to relinquish the tiniest scraps of mercy, even at the expense of Yellow Diamond’s pride.


	25. zero-gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by "Adventures in Light Distortion" and tumblr user @psykopsy.

Earth.   
Such a simple, small name for something that had caused the whole of Homeworld, let alone the Diamonds, so much grief and distress.  
Yellow Diamond had done her best to accommodate Blue. They’d gone back to Earth, hadn’t they? Together, with that flock of amethysts Blue liked to waste protecting the Zoo. As if a gem would break in. And they’d collected whole villages of humans, loading them onto the ships, and Blue had cried the whole way through and Yellow had been ever so understanding and solicitous when inside, she burned with anger and frustration.  
Not much longer, though. The Earth would be destroyed in the emergence of the Cluster.  
For the first time, Yellow Diamond found herself in the exceedingly uncomfortable position of dearly hoping that said emergence wouldn’t happen soon. For she’d walked directly into the Crystal Gems’ trap and was now stuck on the miserable rock.  
The room they kept her in was a grey room in a grey square, with grey walls and a grey floor and a grey ceiling, all smooth and blank like cinderblock buildings made to order. Yellow was convinced that at least one wall was a tinted mirror.   
“Don’t worry,” an irritatingly chipper rebel human had assured her, “you two will be perfectly safe in here.”  
“Yeah,” grunted the jasper, dimly familiar, looming threateningly beside the human, “we’d hate for you to get caught by one of the gems you corrupted.”  
If Yellow had been at her normal strength, she would have bellowed and fought. As it was, she simply wheezed, unable to quite get used to a chest that was almost thirty times smaller than what she was used to. She could barely breathe.  
“We’ll be back later,” said the chipper human, beaming insolently up at her. “We’re just seeing Amethyst off. She volunteered to be our exchange hostage!”  
“So the other Diamonds don’t think you’ve been straight up shattered,” the jasper added unpleasantly, flat teeth gleaming in her smile.  
They’d left, and Yellow’s gem had ached in horror. She told herself that that emotion wasn’t fear.  
It would have been ridiculous for the Crystal Gems to attempt to hold a full sized Diamond captive. There was no structure on Earth that could hold her.   
A tiny, pearlsized, skinny little Diamond suspended in a zero gravity chamber in some unknown rebel base was far more plausible.  
At least, thought Yellow sourly, they hadn’t isolated her. Her pearl remained, irritatingly able to look her directly in the eye now. Yellow had always kept a relatively careful distance from her pearl - otherwise she was liable to be crushed accidentally under Yellow’s foot. But now, with them the same size and crammed into the grey box, her awareness of her had increased thousandfold, just as the pearl had in her vision. It was strange, as if Pearl had been the one to grow rather than Yellow the one who had shrunk.  
“My Diamond,” said Pearl, tentatively, as the silence stretched on. The Crystal Gems seemed to have stolen all the air in the room when they left.  
“What?” Yellow snapped, anger and frustration bubbling up and overspilling. “What do you want?”  
Pearl cringed, folding in on herself. It wasn’t as effective as it used to be. Yellow was far too aware of her own gawky, skinny build, her stick thin arms, her higher and shriller voice. She felt ridiculous. And now, with Pearl’s facial expression far more clearly visible, a little guilty.  
Yellow Diamond liked intimidation, wrapped it around herself like a cloak. She rarely made threats she didn’t mean to carry out. There was a line between healthy respect for authority and fear, and Yellow began to realise she had just crossed it.  
“My Pearl,” she ground out, and Pearl raised her head, looking a little star struck. This close, Yellow could see the glint and shine of her large golden eyes, soft and liquid, like honey. She really was a pretty thing, Yellow noted objectively in some distant part of her head that wasn’t consumed with her own helplessness.  
“I was wondering - if possible - my Diamond - if you had a plan?”  
It was sheer torture to wait for her to stutter to the end. Yellow vibrated with impatience. She wanted to move. Wanted to act! She paced, thickly, wearing grooves in the floor. Even that was unsatisfying. Her step should have been heavy enough to make the walls shake.  
“A plan!” Yellow exploded, saw the pearl cringe and furious with herself, punched the wall. At her normal strength, it would have buckled the metal. Now, her fist hit the wall with an unpleasant crack and white hot pain suddenly shot up her arm. Yellow shouted in unexpected pain, and her Pearl had launched herself to her feet and seized her Diamond about the waist, dragging her away to stop her from punching the wall again, in the blink of an eye. Shocked by the sudden force of Pearl yanking her offbalance, Yellow tripped and fell backwards, sending them both flying down in a tangle of stick thin limbs. Yellow’s bruised hand hit the floor hard, and she yelled again, feeling tears spring up to her eyes, much to her humiliation.  
“My Diamond!” Pearl sounded distressed. “My Diamond, you must be careful! This form is weaker than your normal one, you could hurt yourself!”  
Physical pain was such an unusual experience for a gem as resilient as a Diamond that Yellow found herself off guard, staring at her Pearl with tears in her eyes and cradling a bruised hand. She had never felt so helpless and weak in her life.  
Something in her face must have upset Pearl, because instead of backing away and apologising for her temerity in touching Yellow without permission, she leapt forward and squeezed Yellow tightly around the middle. It took some trial and error for Yellow to figure out what to do with her hands, which fluttered, awkwardly, above Pearl’s head. She wasn’t quite able to get rid of the persistent idea that Pearl was fragile, that she’d shatter at the wrong touch.  
In truth, it really was Yellow who was fragile, here. At least Pearl seemed to know how to not injure herself.  
“Don’t worry, my Diamond!” Pearl reassured her in her nasally voice, “We will escape from this place, and when we do, the Crystal Gems won’t know what hit them!”  
“Ah,” said Yellow, uncomfortable and embarrassed, “Thank you, Pearl.” She could count on one hand how many times she had been touched like this by any other than Blue.   
Oh, Blue.  
She would be worried, Yellow thought, suddenly. She would be terrified that Yellow wasn’t coming back like Pink had. Any requests the Crystal Gems had, she would acquiesce to in order to secure Yellow’s safe return. The Crystal Gems had willingly traded a prisoner of their own, their own Amethyst. Were Homeworld and the rebellion in peace talks right now, and Yellow trapped, unable to stop Blue from agreeing to something foolish?  
Yellow gripped Pearl in a return approximation of a hug. This was her own damn fault. Stars only knew what a mess Homeworld would be when she returned.  
Abruptly, the prison cell seemed a far more attractive place to stay than the chaos that no doubt awaited her return to both her job and full size.


	26. unshattered and corrupted 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by an anonymous message on tumblr. Unshattered!Pink AU from Fragment 8/Corrupted!White from Fragment 17, set as a continuation of fragment 17, belonging.  
> Contains insanity and sexual references.

There were voices and there was darkness. They blended together, somehow soluble, until the world was swirling and malleable and loud, like the breathing of a great and friendly creature somehow close by yet out of her awareness. The presence of others was a feeling so alien that White Diamond floated in the state of half consciousness, convinced that she had finally gone insane.

_“-Love-Diamond? … … … -insane-?”_

_“-can’t-…”_

She had lost the definition of sanity sometime around losing count of how many years she had been trapped in the mouldering decay of her own once bustling palace, feeling first her mind and then her body atrophy. She had tried to hoard sanity, so that she would have enough of it when the time came (White, even White, couldn’t bear to think that she had outlived her use to Homeworld, that she had been discarded rather than recycled, as if she had been litter too disappointing to sweep up), but as centuries wore by it became increasingly pleasant fall back into the sly and deceptive trance of dreams, to let her rationality be eroded into a softer and forgiving world halfway between fantasy and memory.

_“-….save… pink?”_

_“-diamond… -gone-…”_

Perhaps she had already gone insane, and this was one more delusion to wake from. Perhaps she had been insane since Pink Diamond had been shattered. _Shattered._ The word echoed in her, without meaning, she had blocked out futures without Pink, had blocked out the feeling of grief. ( _Oh, how she had once enjoyed, sensuous, primal, to run her fingers through gem shards, edges pricking her fingers, slicing, sharp, defeated, hers, now, forever in what remained of them, triumph was better than sex_.) Something had broken in her then, something that had felt important – because afterwards, White felt the gaping edges of it like a hole blown in a wall, letting the wind whistle through and out again, letting the darkness and the conversation bubble in, gelatinous, oozing.

_“-lovers… ready?-“_

_“-My…-pink-rose-.”_

She was exhausted. She took refuge in her exhaustion, familiar, comforting, in its utterly debilitating effect. Her buttocks and thighs remembered the unyielding stone press of her throne too well and White was caught between conflicting sense experience with the feeling of a cold unyielding floor pressing into her side, ooze from her blind eye dripping as slow as molasses over the edge of her nose to weld shut her other eyelid with a thick dried yellowish crust. Her knees ached, dully, old nerves protesting more at being used than at the information that they were providing. She couldn’t figure out where she was, wondered, in an abstract sort of way, if she even cared. Let her be used. She wanted to exist to someone. _To be used is to be useful._

_“-gone.”_

Light shone briefly intensely violent against her eyelid, then stone pressed into her, flesh, yearningly, against flesh – _oh, heat, quickened, inside her, and White remembered being a living thing_ – and White fell backwards into somewhere tunnelled and black, drifting, unmoored to the ground, floating, gnawed through with holes, wispy, aching. The gaps in her felt cold, rawbitten numb, like emptiness, like despair.

* * *

White was thinking of blue. Blue. Open skies were blue, funnelled with white clouds. The seas were blue, green sometimes when it was warmest, when Yellow was there, hot, stirring. In the places where the sea was deepest and bluest it looked so subservient to the wind that ruffled it into whitecaps and tsunamis and waves, but deep and far underneath, the sea hid currents of its own, whispering, entangled, intangible. She remembered swimming very dimly, things that involved exertion were always harder to remember, raw moments, cut sideways into a cross-section of panting muscle and exorbitant emotion. She’d been overspilling with it back then, emotion, blue, and had let it swirl away down between her fingertips. Maybe she should have saved a bottle, corked, to revisit. Maybe she could break the cork, penetrate into the memory of rain on her cheeks as it fizzed and foamed like champagne. Holding Blue Diamond had always felt like trying to catch rain. She always wanted to escape, always seemed to melt away and in when White tried to hold her close, cold, wet, damp.

Blue water could become ice. A desert of willing water locked into frigid icecaps, refusing purchase, refusing mercy. _(How Blue Diamond had smiled, wept, watery, when she locked White away.)_

* * *

_COLD._

Like a revenant, the soapy, chilling touch of the moon brought White back from the dead, hardened her, realised her. She felt her chest inflate with a breath – a gasp. The world was electric. Water lapped, unbearable, silky, against skin White didn’t remember having. _Oh. Oh._ White blaze in the sky, breeze, stars. _Oh. Oh._ Too much. Too much.

Shadows, blotting out the magnificent sky. She wanted to weep and did, sensitive, virginal, terrified, on her back in the water, hands supporting her, touching her. Her own body shone, palely, polished bones, glittering diamond. Her scales and spikes looked like glass shards, translucent.

“Welcome to the show, sleeping beauty.” Smooth, jazzy, like silk ties, a blinding white shirt. Milky cabochon on her forehead, glinting glasses. Bucktooth smirk, tugging one full lip. Confident. White wanted to taste that confidence, crunch it, sharp and bloody, between her teeth, on her tongue. Swallow the salt. Embrace it, bathe in it.

Dazed, weak like a newborn, White’s one seeing eye strained to focus. Too bright. It was overwhelming. Too much, too much at once. They were in the deep end, sinking in the black lake under the eye of the moon.

“Sardonyx,” she said.

Hands, moving over her. Dust, grime, washing away, making her skin white glistening, pure, like marble. There were four of them, each feather touch feeling as painful as if soft skin was sandpaper (and who was burning? The water was cold, but White felt so hot).

“Bathing somebody,” said Sardonyx contemplatively, “is a good way to learn where their weak spots are, don’t you think?”

White trembled violently. She was drawn out of the water, carried, smoothly, without effort, carried to an edge of springy grass and laid down, on the wet earth. Sardonyx pulled a billowing white length of fabric out of the pearl on her forehead and tied it in a knot around White’s shoulder. Made her decent, left the most indecent parts of her bare. She could handle being naked if Sardonyx had hidden the paw of White Diamond’s left hand, ugly, gnarled.

_Corrupted._

Sardonyx lifted her again. “I forgot how pale you are,” she said. “Under that stony grime. _You be my white rabbit, I’ll be the magician, how does that sound?”_ Bucktooth grin.

White rocked herself to sleep in the swinging gait of Sardonyx’s steps, her pleasant chatter.

* * *

There were dancing pearls, everywhere, slipper whispering feet, bright blue eyes. White had loved them so much. Pretty, and meek, and silent. Soft throats poised to sing, milky skin rippling with colours. Her tender, innocent servants. No hand had touched them, not even her own. They moved, in spheres of isolation, and sang about loneliness until their voices went raw and they picked their pretty fingers raw and red and bleeding with the urge to touch.

Pearls had a tendency to turn to dust under high pressure, chalky nacre flakes, like salty chalk.

* * *

“… brought you a gift.”

Impact juddered through Sardonyx’s knees, White, rattled. Old blood stirred in her veins. Darkness slanted against her closed eyelid, her wet skin had dried, the fabric clung to her unbearably. Sensation, lucid, whispered and whimpered in her mind. The parts of her that touched Sardonyx felt prickly and raw, like pins and needles, dead flesh waking up.

“For me?” A greedy voice spoke straight from a memory, half laughter, half cruelty, all beauty.

The air was very warm, womblike, something nascent and healing in the air. A peculiar wetness only found underground. It brushed, mockingly tangible, against the raw nerves left in White, and ghosts giggled and flirted with Sardonyx’s assured, bubbly presence.

Sly, darting, White imagined her. Red tongue flashing between painted pink lips, heavy eyes. That _smile_ that dared her to eat the world raw, to let Pink pluck out her bones and suck the marrow of her strength. Pink had always _wanted._ White only _craved._ Obsessively, thirstily, until either the world or she went mad. White thought about her now, like a rosebud poking up, shy, deep flushed red, snipped off at the stem, leaving only dry thorns.

Sardonyx settled her against the wall, stroked the hair away from her face. “Be kind when you can, white rabbit. Always be kind.”

New rock against her back, new stone under her buttocks and thighs, but it felt the same. It all felt the same. She drifted.

* * *

A stinging slap rocked White’s head on her neck.

“You reek,” Pink hissed, pinching White’s cheek, sharp red talons scraping lines down colourless flesh. “God, you’re disgusting. Look at you.”

White moaned. It was getting worse. Her ghosts could touch her now – could strike her, make pain blossom like sharp knives slipping into her skin. _Please – why had it taken them so long?_

“Nothing fucking changes with you, White.”

_“Please…”_

“Please _what?_ Mind too gone to speak?”

White fumbled at her, pulled her off balance, pulled her close. She snapped threats but didn’t struggle, instead only gasped, softly, White thought, in pain. White pressed her face into Pink’s shoulder and breathed her in, breathed in her scent, the feeling of her, intoxicating, thunderous pulse like the hearty beat of an ox’s heart, ripped still thumping from the raw chest, salty, hot, warm, blood. Red, Pink, it was her, it was her. And White had gone mad, but there were lines of gold in Pink’s cheeks to trace now with her stiffened claw fingers, one eye was dull and metallic looking instead fiery pink.

“Of course they let me have you.” Pink was crying, White knew exactly how she sounded when she cried, a little hoarse, swollen up, and her throat skipped just – _like that._ “Blue won’t lower herself to see how fragile I’ve become, Yellow thinks I’m a traitor. But you – oh, oh, White, nothing ever changes with you. Even now –“

Clumsily, White yanked at her, wanting closeness – craving Pink. She hissed softly between her teeth, then grabbed a fistful of White’s hair and ripped it out all in a clump, leaving a blood-flecked bald patch.

“Careful, careful – you mad thing, you beast, you degenerate, you’ll break me again.”

White whined into her shoulder, felt her body slide against Pink, become limp, obedient, let Pink position her, until White’s head and shoulders rested on Pink’s lap, Pink’s arms wrapped around White’s shoulders.

White trembled, closed her eyes, cried, shamelessly. She had gone insane, if she thought Pink was alive. She had gone insane, if she thought Pink would still touch her when White was as hideous and corrupted as she was.

If it meant having Pink, White didn’t care. Nothing ever changed. White still loved her as much as she had the moment Pink had emerged from the ground.


	27. unshattered and corrupted 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> continuation of the previous. warning, abusive relationships, corruption, nudity and sexual references.

_“Suns._ You’re filthy, again,” Pink hissed, her voice betraying just the slightest amount of jealousy. White was allowed outside the intricate cave system that Pink lived in so that she could regularly visit Jasper’s corruption clinic, whereas Pink never left, too worried for her fragile gemstone. White’s condition was improving, Pink admitted candidly, she was far more responsive than she had been upon her arrival a few months ago.

Most of the patients preferred to stay away from White, but every so often the cruellest of them chased her and pelted her with mud. It could have been far worse, considering that White was directly responsible for their corruption, but White would never breathe a word of her attackers’ identities. She was too ashamed to admit that they frightened her.

White said nothing, stuffing the knuckles of her intact hand into her mouth and biting down hard with a little frown. Nevertheless, the way she pressed herself, tentatively, into the brisk scrubbing of her grime-encrusted scales betrayed her. Her entire body canted towards Pink, like a flower growing towards the light. Unsubtly, she was staring at Pink’s nakedness beside her in the bathing pool, flicking her eyes away with a hurried and shy flush whenever Pink gave her a pointed look. Yet, not even seconds later, her eyes would be dragged unwillingly back to Pink’s exposed skin, banded with golden impurities, gleaming from the soapy water.

“ _White_. Can you please stop staring at my tits?”

White flinched, and guiltily her eyes shot back up to Pink’s unimpressed face. Slowly, her face went deep blue, and she closed her eyes tightly. White had only allowed herself to be washed on the condition that Pink joined her (at that point, White couldn’t seem to get into the bath fast enough). Never shy and, despite her impurities, the more beautiful between them by miles, Pink didn’t mind too much. At least it kept White suitably distracted whilst Pink washed her – she normally fidgeted unbearably if Pink paid too close attention to the scales and spikes and scars the corruption had left her.

“Thank you,” muttered Pink sarcastically, stifling a grimace as she picked up the cloth and set to work trying to scrape mud out between White’s scales.

The corruption was ugly and Pink shuddered to touch it. Even worse, there was no way to remove the stench of gangrenous flesh, dust, and rotted fabric even with all the scrubbing in the world. She tried her best to be tactful about how repellent White had become, but it was difficult when White followed her around like a kicked dog, never more than three inches from her side, always woeful and begging for attention. More than once, Pink had become frustrated and snapped for her to take her stench away from Pink’s nose, only to feel instantly bad when White shrunk in on herself, horrifically embarrassed of her decrepitude.

The naptimes were the worst; Pink had taken up the habit of sleeping to supplement her healing, and White would crawl into bed beside her, eyes glowing dimly in the night. With another gem so close, close enough to touch, to hear them breathing, to feel their heat, Pink’s desperation for companionship warred with her revulsion for White.

Obediently, when sent away, White would crawl off to lie under the light of the stars that poured in through the entrance to the cave system, where the wind blew strongly enough to prevent her stink from lingering. She would shiver there, a heap of dirty grey, until a guilty and frustrated Pink came to drag her back to the massive circular indent in the floor, stuffed with pillows and blankets, that served as her bed. Then, White would scurry back nearly on all-fours, tripping over herself in her eagerness, breathing a bit too quickly with eyes joyful-bright, a goofy grin, hidden shyly. So insecure. Pink remembered when White had still had authority enough to pin her to a wall.

She looked so pathetically happy to just be summoned. Pink could hardly bear it. The thought that this had once been the most awe-inspiring and powerful empress of Homeworld sickened her.

How had Yellow and Blue let her come to this? How could everything have changed so completely in the five thousand years Pink had been… gone? Earth was unrecognisable, championed by a hybrid with the gem that had both killed and reborn her, a democratically ruled society of free gems with no Diamond to serve. Pink Diamond herself had been intended as a gift, she knew it, a gift that had gone horribly wrong.

The other Diamonds hadn’t wanted her back. She had been rejected by her own society, branded a traitor, a filthy liar who had deceived them, who had never been shattered at all, but remained the pet of the Crystal Gems in luxury whilst Homeworld mourned her. The thought that they all believed such lies about her infuriated her.

White’s whimper wrenched her back to the present, and Pink realised that she had been scrubbing so viciously in her anger that the skin around her scales was raw and reddened, and there was blue blood in the water. White’s face was screwed up in discomfort, eyes still politely closed but muscles as tense as if she had been carved from rock, and she flinched when Pink set the cloth back against her scaly hide stretching over her left side. _Suns._ She was so fragile these days, so fearful of pain. Disability beat a certain sort of anxiety into a person, an acute awareness of their own weakness, constantly flinching away from the simplest things if only to protect what was left.

“Fuck,” the words tumbled out of her, “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, White – hey, hey, look at me now, come on, don’t be all rigid like that – I’m not going to hurt you, White. Come on now. Look at me.”

White turned her head unwillingly to look at her. In the blue light flickering over the iridescent greyish walls, her cheeks were pale and her expression drawn. To Pink’s amusement, her eyes were still closed. Pink cupped her face, her thumb snagging on the long sabretooth in the left side of her mouth. Their bodies moved closer in the frigid water, as cold as only the water deep underground could be, raising goosebumps on their immortal flesh, tightening skin. The air was damp, chill, but Pink could still dimly feel the warmth of White’s body close to hers in the cyan-tinted water.

White was breathing fast, almost panting, like a dog starved for petting, like an unsteady virgin with none of the sweetness. She was shaking, too, with excitement. The poor creature kept herself so still for fear of jinxing their rarely intimate position that she was almost vibrating with tension. Her wet hair curled against Pink’s fingers, the sharp flanged outlines of the horns thrusting jaggedly from her skull. Barely enough to be felt, she was leaning her cheeks into trustingly Pink’s hands, her mouth parting just enough for Pink to see her black tongue like a corpulent slug between the wicked ivory cage of her inhumanly sharp teeth.

Did she think Pink wanted to kiss her? White’s eagerness was both flattering and pathetic. Had she forgotten how hideous she was? Did she think Pink didn’t care?

It was cruel. Pink knew it was cruel before she did it and that she would probably feel bad about it later, yet some part of her relished in the power White gave her, relished in her own ability to create devastation. The Crystal Gems had been so careful to not give Pink a foothold to torment them. White was not so wise.

She curved her hands around White’s neck, pulling her close, until they were touching, chests pressed flush, White’s scales poking unpleasantly at her smooth skin. Only her stomach remained pushed back, protecting her gem, until they were curving into each other, as if magnetised. Pink caressed the back of White’s neck with her long, painted nails, mockingly tender. White uttered a soft, trembling gasp, and her eyelids fluttered – spinelessly, she controlled herself and kept them closed. Pink chuckled, dark and low.

She leaned in nice and close, until her lips whispered against White’s cheek, just right of her lips.

“You disgust me,” she murmured into White’s skin, and White went suddenly very still. Pink’s lips curved up into a cruel smile, and now her tender hold became torture, nails digging into White’s neck, forcing them close together so White could feel how Pink remained perfect where White did not.

“You hideous, rutting beast,” she hissed, “You vile _monster._ You sicken me. God. My stomach physically turns when you come close to me with those ugly, barbed scales, warped and all twisted. Do you even realise how ugly you are?”

White tried to pull away, jerking and jolting, wriggling like the worm she was, but Pink had her prey in a death grip now, and she went for the kill, teeth grazing along White’s throat. White went still again.

“What, did you think I _wanted_ you?” Pink gloated, delighting in the flickers and wrenches of pain in White’s face that she was too slow to conceal. “You repulsive, loathsome little cockroach. Look at you. Are you crying? You’re so fucking pathetic, you diseased piece of shit. I thought you were supposed to be a Diamond.” 

 _Like me,_ she thought, viciously. Weak and broken, what a pair they made.

White indeed was crying, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, mixed in with ooze from the blind left eye. She sniffled, and her entire body jerked with the movement. Still, she kept her eyes closed, and neither denied nor protested the truth of Pink’s statements. It was a submission too sweet for words.

As a reward, Pink kissed her. White cried the whole way through, once or twice struggled as if she didn’t know whether she wanted to escape or come closer. Pink held her down regardless, barely above the water level. She had drowned White in here before, when White was being particularly difficult about being washed, and the fear of her memories was enough to keep White’s eyes on the verge of flickering open, her chest heaving with both panic and excitement.

She was a sickening display. But a heady one, for a gem who was too weak to overpower anyone else. Even now, White was stronger than her, wouldn’t struggle to fatally injure Pink even by accident. Her very gentleness was a chosen submission, and what made her so easy to take advantage of. Nothing ever changed with White, and White could never bear to hurt Pink.

Eventually, Pink got bored and got out, leaving White and dressing herself in the large robe Jasper had brought her once as a gift. She wandered into the main complex of the caves, humming idly, almost not noticing the strange tense stillness until it was too late.

A sudden sense of wrongness stopped Pink in her tracks. She looked up, around the cave that had been her home for years now. The air was disturbed, and there was a soft, familiar sound, marching bands and humming computer wires, muted, hiding, but still there.

There was an intruder. A very familiar intruder that Pink had never hoped to see again.

White barrelled up the passageway, her greyish stained shift billowing untied, sticking to her still wet body. Immediately she sunk into hunting crouch in front of Pink, protectively.

A tall shape loomed out of the darkness of the cave mouth, striding forward with an inescapable sense of purpose, each click of the bootheel on the stone sounding like the sword of Damocles falling. Her eyes glittered, as cold and ruthless as ever as she approached, inexorable.

White snarled terrifyingly, and Pink swore, a chill of fear racing down her spine.

_“Yellow!”_


	28. personality swap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But if you do switch personalities, but let them keep their obsessions that would be interesting. (unshattered)Pink wants to be free, while (corrupted)White just wants her stuff to stay and be pretty lol." -tumblr anon

“Hah! Hah!” Pink is giggling to herself again, rocking back and forth with sharp little gasps of pain - drawn out, relished. She is clawing at the cracks of gold in her skin, quivering with joy as they split open and bleed red. It is sensation, her sensation, under her control and no one else’s. They cannot take her skin from her. “Hah! Hah! You can’t keep me anymore, no-” A demented snicker. “Too broken to keep! Throw her out! Hah! Hah!” She doubles over, this time with a long moan of pain and utter anguish, gritted from between her teeth, hands cupping her barely healed gem. “Too broken to be wanted,” she hisses, victoriously, limp strands of hair dangling in front of her face. Pink bares her teeth, and grins again. It’s a broken sort of grin, a smile full of glass. She wraps her arms around herself in a simulation of a hug, terribly lonely, and begins to rock, humming to drive the awful silence away.

* * *

White Diamond suffers in silence. She muffles the visible signs in cloaks and cowls and restricts her time in court. She encases her left hand in a limb enhancer made by Yellow and learns to speak past the lisp her sharpened teeth have given her.  
She will not give them the satisfaction of seeing how far she has fallen. She likes to watch how they dance around her, her subordinates, her defective darlings, unsure of whether they can push for command or not. Yellow is the worst. White can see her, testing, pushing the boundaries, waiting for White to slip up so she can seize control.  
It’s an illusion of power, of course. White’s too weak to pose a threat to anyone. But White likes to push them and it. Caressing Yellow’s skin with her scaly hand, raising golden blood with her claws, commanding Yellow to clean the mess her wounds create. Yellow hates her, she can see it in her eyes. But for now, she’s too wary to make a move.  
White plays the game. The anticipation of winning is worth the possibility of losing.


	29. kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink Diamond emerges defective, White decides to keep her locked away in the hopes of training her to overcome it.
> 
> NSFWish, sexual coercion, abusive relationships, shock therapy, mentions of implied self-harm.

For a few brief minutes, she was perfect. Pink Diamond exploded from the ground, laughing, glass all the way back, shattering a cliff with the force of her emergence. As the dust cleared, they beheld her, ruddy rose pink, the colour of flayed flesh and passion, standing tall and proud flawless, hand cocked jauntily on one hip, curious wide smile, open, trusting. How her eyes had glittered, brilliant with inquisitiveness, with newness, with innocence!

She spoke well, her mind was quick and responsive, her body obedient to her command, and _oh, oh,_ she was electric with youthful charm, dripping with it, laden with an alluring quality in her naive sincerity that drew them back, all three of them, Yellow, Blue and White alike caught dancing to the devil’s fiddle – if the devil was an angel who had never fallen, pure and sweet like the first bite from a fresh peach.

Pink Diamond couldn’t have known then that those first few minutes masquerading as a perfect being determined her future for the next few thousand years. White Diamond was half in love already, entranced by the idea of her long before she had emerged, and now confronted with the reality which she had barely allowed herself to accept. It seemed too good to be true, and it was.

It was that burgeoning infatuation that made White stay the first time Pink fell, screaming and thrashing and blurring, form falling apart as she fitted, though White was confused and concerned – then rapidly heartbroken. It was devastating to discover the defect, because she really was perfect in every other way. But there was hope, crestfallen White suggested, stroking Pink’s sweat-damped hair off her forehead as she came round, since Pink wasn’t really obviously defective, maybe with the right environments she could be trained out of it. A cause of overexcitement, maybe. Perhaps with the right carefully controlled guidance, she could reach her full potential.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond agreed that there was none better than White Diamond to teach what it meant to attain perfect purity and flawlessness. Pink Diamond, without protest, was given into her care. The other two turned their minds away from her.

* * *

Pink Diamond bit and thrashed as angrily as a wildcat, her nails clawing deep into White’s implacable arms, raising blue ichor that dripped, steadfastly ignored, to the gleaming floor of the cell. The utter humiliation of Pink’s position did not escape her; White’s arms were fixed around her midsection, Pink’s back pressed against her chest, lifting her clean off the ground as if she were a misbehaving toddler. White was too strong for her. Right now however, the all-encompassing fear of imprisonment was blocking out any rational thought.

“Let me go!” Pink shrieked, hearing her voice crack and hating it, hating herself, hating White, hating this room.

Sobbing with fury, Pink twisted and turned, trying her best to wriggle free. Anywhere but here. She could be anywhere but here, White couldn’t leave her here again, to go half-mad in the familiar walls. There were scratches scored deep in the reinforced stone from where Pink had ripped at her confinement and then at her flesh, shredding nails and fingers down to stubs of blood and bone. Already, the four walls caging her seemed close in on her breath, making each desperate lungful tight and sharp, like swallowing fishhooks.

“Then  _behave_ ,” White ordered sternly as the door hissed shut behind them.

The sound of the door closing sent Pink into a flurry of blind panic. She screamed as if she was being murdered and lashed out blindly, hearing White curse somewhere far away, her voice muffled. Her teeth met something solid and she bit down hard, White’s ichor filling her mouth, swallowed instinctively, sucked for more. Disgusted, the steel bands of White’s arms dropped her.

Pink crashed to the floor and felt painful static race up and down her projection, electric and violent. For a moment she arched, her form wobbling and blurring, held tensely silent in agony. Her form went white and shining, as if she was reforming, but jerking all over, as if she was corrupting, being electrocuted, held in terrible pain. As her lungs formed and then crackled in static, her scream came out warped and dysfunctional.

A second later, her form stabilised again and she collapsed, panting against the floor, shaking as if struck by lightning. As the fit passed, she realised dimly that she was crying and that White was gathering her in her arms, stroking her hair and kissing her head. Numbly Pink let her; her body felt limp and weak, and she had to concentrate on not panicking and triggering another fit.

“Why do you do this yourself?” White was asking, sorrowfully, “You know what happens when you get overexcited, Pink. Do you really want this to happen all the time? Until you can control yourself, you can’t be trusted to take care of yourself.”

Pink gulped out a huge, shuddering sob and White murmured and clucked in sympathy, her lips on her, soft-brushing kisses on her shoulders, her neck, White’s hands touching her, skimming the expanse of Pink’s quivering back. Pink pressed against the touches needily, grounding herself in White, scrunching her eyes shut in shame. She punished herself for her weakness by biting her lip so hard that it started bleeding.

This was their routine. Pink hurt herself, White cared for her. Ever since Pink Diamond had emerged defective and been deemed too unsafe to be allowed to roam free. In the early days, it was easier not to question, to push, to try and escape despite knowing that she belonged locked up where she could not do anyone harm, not even herself. At only one or two days old, the enormous presence of the other Diamonds to Pink had felt magisterial yet angelic, and with White their leader, ruthlessly overpowering. Their power held certain seductive quality for her, as tantalising yet unknowable as the prospect of freedom. And despite everything, she could not stop herself from pushing, from wanting it for herself.

Pink Diamond was nearly one year old now. All she had ever seen was the cell, dim memories of the broken planet of her emergence, and White Diamond. White Diamond was her anchor and jailor in one, a resplendent, transient figure that represented near-omnipotence to Pink. White alone possessed her, utterly and absolutely, White alone could keep her with impunity. As much of her believed, helplessly, that it was right as savagely reverberated with the wrongness of being kept.

“Pink,” White saying, insistently, “Pink, look at me.”

Her gloved hand caught Pink’s chin and turned Pink’s head up to face hers when Pink didn’t move of her own volition. White’s perfect face softened with compassion when she saw the teary mess of Pink’s, and she kissed Pink’s forehead, lingering a moment longer than she needed to. Her warm breath fanned against Pink’s eyelids. Pink stretched into her touch, like a cat desperate for petting, and White obliged her, knuckling one hand down her back. Pink trembled again, for a different reason, one she did not understand but often drove her to press closer to White, as if she could envelop them together in the same flesh – perfect and defective mingling, a forbidden and horrific fantasy.

As always, the moment she sensed Pink coming too close, White drew abruptly away and restored formality. She stood and stepped away, smoothing her clothes and frowning a little at the scratches on her arms. Pink listed into herself, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly. Nonetheless, she stared avidly at White, like a flower thirsty for sunlight to relieve a hopelessly bored mind.

“The pain, the fear, it will all go away if you just do as I say. I know it may seem harsh to you, but I am only doing this because I know it’s what’s best for you.” White told her, looking down at her from above.

Pink said nothing. There was a dreadful hollowness crouched just inside her chest, swallowing up any words. She hadn’t meant to try and escape. There had been a pearl, sent down to clean up the rancid mess Pink had made of herself. The pearl was such a little thing, so timid, it had been so easy, so easy that like an addict after a fix, Pink hadn’t been able to stop herself. That pearl was dead now. Cracked. Gone. Shattered. White assured Pink that she would never be seeing a pearl again.

“You know that, don’t you?” White asked her. Almost bashfully, if a creature like White could be bashful, she glanced away from Pink, her powerful grey eyes meeting the scratches Pink had clawed into the wall with her own hands. “That I – that I care about you? That I do this because of that?”

“Yes,” said Pink, eventually. But softly. She tried her best to smile up at White, her expression watery, trying her best to convey the twisted mix of emotions growing inside her.  _Filthy. Sick. Defective._

“I promise that you will grow accustomed to this,” White said. “It is astonishing what things people can get used to, given the incentive. In time, your obedience will be its own reward. Let me take care of the rest. I will protect you.”

“Thank you,” Pink whispered, on the verge of soundlessness.

White smiled and left then, the door closing with a final click of locks. Alone, Pink held herself tighter and started to rock, as if jerky movement would push the suffocating walls further away.

Pink wasn’t sure whether she desperately wanted or deeply feared that White would be right. It was easier not to think about it.

* * *

There were tests.

White was never cruel, nor did she ever abuse her physically, but she found ways to push Pink to the limits of her endurance. Like all gems, Pink had emerged with a basic knowledge of herself and her abilities, but the rest, she had to learn.

There were mental tasks, complex mathematics and science done under intense pressure, training Pink how to work hard and under stress without losing her cool. She hated those, because they were often boring, but even the most dull laws and taxes that White could set her to learn by rote were far more interesting than blank walls. She tapped out numbers on her knee and drank in the knowledge of physics, technology, the laws and mechanisms of the world outside. She studied planets and maps, geology, biology, choir, chemistry, philosophy and history, found herself occasionally engaging White in debate and spending an enjoyable hour or three in incessant argument until an irritated White dragged them back on schedule.

There were exercising tasks, from the very minute testing of her finest motor control in tiny, sensitive wires that made her eyes cross and the headache form in her temples to flat-out endurance training, running and running and running until she dropped, or poofed herself, or fitted. Pink liked exercising best; there was an honesty in raw hard labour that let her pound her thoughts away until all she was existed in the moment of thudding heart, rushing blood, sweat. Rarely, but deeply anticipated, White sometimes brought her outside the complex in which Pink’s world was limited in order to use her for demolition, or some similar task that required nothing but backbreaking unskilled labour.

She savoured those times as barriers against those in the cell, reliving again and again the tiniest detail afforded to her of the Homeworld that stole so much of White’s time and yet was completely foreign to Pink.

Pink had rest breaks, scheduled and formulaic, and in those breaks she was returned to her cell and total isolation, in order to recuperate. Most often, she developed a habit near to sleep, and went comatose to pass the time in the hated cage. The distractions of the constant testing made her often too exhausted to face her anxiety of being trapped in the small, torturous room.

However, most despised of all was the shock-therapy.

“Modified gem destabilisers,” White told her the first time she strapped Pink in, flat against a cold yellow table, with metal bands wrapping around wrists and ankles. The bands sent gentle, increasing charges into her physical form, and Pink would have to hold it steady without triggering another fit. It did work, because Pink was able to last longer and longer each time, but it always happened eventually. Stepping into the room made her skin prickle with fear in anticipation of the pain that would come with the inevitable fit.

Yet, despite her dread, Pink also perversely looked forward to it. Because afterwards, while Pink was still buzzing and shuddering and crying, White would hold her. Pressed together on the yellow table gleaming wetly with Pink’s sweat, White would wrap her arms around Pink, safe and secure, or if the fit was particularly bad, pull her onto her lap so that Pink could fold her legs around White’s waist and feel White’s flat gemstone against her shoulder. Pink would be allowed to bury her nose in White’s hair and breathe in the cool, windy scent of her, and if she was discreet, play with the curly tufts at the nape of White’s neck, the smooth weave of her cloak, the hard ridges of her epaulettes.

White Diamond was a wealth of textured experience, validating in her solidity. Pink learnt to take what she could get when it came to the extraordinary privilege of another gem’s companionship.

Slowly, her control improved.

* * *

Pink told herself that things got better, over time.

Obedience won her shiny wrapped presents, ceding control to White earned her fewer thoughts – fewer panics – fewer fits, playing the game taught Pink to milk White for everything she was willing to give and more than a bit that she wasn’t. There was something that Pink could do by touching White sometimes – something that she didn’t understand but powerfully excited her – that seemed to make White’s will to resist melt away. The look she saw in White’s eyes in those moments scared and captivated her. It was a cruel sort of stare, a hungry one, one that didn’t seem to care whether Pink’s gemstone was defective or not.

 _Be careful,_ she told herself, stuffing her knuckles in her mouth to stifle a giddy laugh, the imprint of White’s hands burned into her hips where they had rested, digging in hard enough to leave bruises, as White kissed her forehead in her customary goodbye.  _Be careful, Pink, be careful._ She mustn’t forget that she was at White’s mercy – the game must be played carefully, but  _oh –_ and Pink wriggled in pleased anticipation – it was exhilarating to be looked at like she mattered.

She bit her knuckle hard enough to raise blood.  

She had new rooms now, and anything she wanted if she asked for it, if she was willing to repay White by drawing out hugs until they became embraces, curled up on White’s lap while White read to her, flattery, kisses, smiles, unquestioning obedience. Little things, bargaining with what little Pink had for favours. White gave her a garden, a massive greenhouse garden, with flora and fauna from all her favourite worlds that only existed to Pink in maps and charts, a massive bed, piled thickly with pillows, a deep and swift bathing pool, sumptuously appointed apartments with synthesised nature views, generic to any other but wondrous to her.

But the greatest gift of all, and the one that took the most careful and considered penance, was visits from Yellow and Blue Diamond.

White controlled who Pink could see absolutely, and both Yellow and Blue seemed wary enough of her follow orders unhesitatingly. Yellow brought with her problems, projects for Pink to work on. It made her feel useful, and she glowed with pride when Yellow, not quite hiding her surprise, commented on her ingenuity and obvious proficiency.

Blue brought with her stories, and listening. She didn’t seem to mind when Pink crawled all over her, touching her face and her hair and the fabric of her shrouding cloaks. She taught Pink instead how to plait hair, their hands moving companionably in near-silence, taut with secret.

 _“You’re like Yellow, when she was young,”_ Blue had whispered to her in that papery voice she had. _“Always so curious, needing to pick everything apart to understand it. She could never accept that some problems can’t be dissected into resolution.”_

Pink had never been told that she was like anyone in her life. After that, she watched Yellow with sly scarlet eyes, wondering if she could get her on her own. Pink knew how to read White well enough to know that White objected to Pink being close with Yellow, and she wanted to know why, when White didn’t seem to care half as much about Blue. There was some sort of tension underlying there that no one would tell her about. Yellow Diamond, authoritative, stressed, unwittingly exuding a powerful mystery, didn’t notice the wandering of Pink’s attentions, but Blue Diamond did, and hid her small, secretive smile under the shadows of her hood.

White never left them alone around her. Pink wondered what she feared happening, wondered if she could use that fear.

* * *

“I’ve got another test for you,” White Diamond told Pink, stiffer and more reserved than ever. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her lips pursed in a thin line, and she was looking away, as if in disapproval. She was closed-off and unapproachable, and Pink began to instantly fear what she had done wrong, and what she could do to make up for it.

Had Pink failed some other invisible test? Had she been too inquisitive? Had she not been inquisitive enough? She racked her memory, trying to think of some slip-up that had offended White. Another test? Her heart sank. More shock-therapy? She immediately began to fear the worst.

“It’s optional, and you may back out at any time,” White Diamond continued, and now she swallowed, and raised her eyes, almost shyly, to meet Pink’s. She inhaled quickly, and her cheeks flushed a very subtle shade of blue.

They were in the bedroom that White had gifted to Pink. Pink was curled up on the thick pillows, the warm glow of the dimmed lights softening her skin, harshening White’s shadows and crisp lines. Pink had deliberately created it to give an intimate feel – it was easier to coax White into staying for just a few hours longer this way.

“But…” The words dragged out of White unwillingly. “If you handle this… successfully, there is little more that _I_ can devise to test your limits.”

Pink caught her breath, hardly daring to believe it. White was offering her an end to the tests that had governed most of her life? But what would she do once she passed? Was there – She didn’t dare to even think of it, for fear of jinxing it. But if there was no reason for her to be kept away anymore, if she proved she could handle the outside…

“I’ll do it,” Pink vowed, breathlessly, “I’ll do anything-“ Hastily, she remembered that she was probably in trouble and amended herself. Either way, a bit of flattery couldn’t hurt. “You know I’d do anything for your approval, White…”

She shifted, sat back on her heels and linked her hands in front of her, subtly pressing her chest out. Pink tilted her head with a little anxious smile that she hoped looked endearing, half-biting her lip in the way she knew White liked. True to form, White swallowed again, dryly, but she looked away, the blush blazing higher over her cheekbones. Confused, Pink stifled her worry. That had never not worked on White before. Something was wrong. Something was different.

“You’re sure?” White asked, harshly, and now she looked back at Pink, pinning her under the fierceness of her stare. It was that hot look again, but now it only made Pink remember the promise she had made to herself, _be careful of baiting White._

 _“Yes.”_ She was the furthest thing from sure she had ever been in her life. Still, whatever test White had come up with couldn’t possibly beat the fits themselves.

With her confirmation, something changed. The last hesitance bled away, and now White rounded the bed in quick, short steps, her hands at her throat undoing her cloak and removing it with a shrug of her shoulders. It fell, a pile of soft white fabric, just out of sight. All the while, White’s eyes never left Pink’s face, as burning as if she wanted to drill holes into her.

“Lie back,” White suggested, the bed dipping underneath her weight.

Trying her best to conceal her shaking with an uneasy smile, Pink did as she was told despite every instinct screaming to the contrary, fixing her stare on the ceiling over her head. It would be over at some point, she told herself.

Nevertheless, when White reached out to touch her face, Pink flinched, violently. White paused, hand inches from Pink’s face.

Gulping, Pink averted her eyes and painstakingly forced her body to lie flat again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“My Pink,” White Diamond murmured, “Don’t you trust me? You know I would never hurt you.”

Pink exhaled, long and slow, and met White’s darkly glittering eyes with a faintly tremulous bravery. Pink thought of White’s shock-therapy, her brutal tests, her fingers leaving bruises when they squeezed her too hard, and she agreed, just as softly, “Of course I trust you, White.”

* * *

_“Blue, what’s the outside like?”_

_“Maybe you could see for yourself some day, Pink.”_

_“I don’t think I will, Blue. I don’t think White’s ever going to let me go.”_


	30. of mystery pearls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious girl picked up a pearl she found at a rock show. Three days later, the singing started.  
> UNFINISHED.

 

“So where did you get that from?” asked her new tutee, Connie, peering inquisitively around her room. She pointed at the large, decorative baroque pearl resting on a cushion on one of her shelves.

“Oh, the pearl? I picked it up at this rock show my cousin dragged me to,” said the Mystery Girl. “Doesn’t do much, but she’s cool.”

“’ _She’.”_ Connie repeated, and there was a knowing gleam in her eyes even as they narrowed sharply.

“What?”

“You just called Pearl a ‘she’. I knew she was looking for someone new! And Steven was right. Pink hair did it after all.”

“Look, kid, what are you on about?“ the Mystery Girl demanded. Defensively, her hand strayed towards the pearl on its cushion.

Connie tapped the odd tattoo on her forehead, her smile widening. “It feels a little odd at first, I mean, alien invading your head, but I think Pearl comes with the best perks - don’t tell Vidalia I said that, she’s so protective of Amethyst - but I have awesome sword skills now! - And, well, traumatic flashbacks, and I nearly died protecting Steven from a bus yesterday, but-”

“What the _fuck?”_

“…You didn’t know?”


	31. gemswap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doug meets Sapphire.

Until half past five on a sunny, slow Thursday, Doug Maheshwaren’s life was perfectly ordinary, predictable, and mundane. It was a day in late summer, when the sun was sinking in the skies over the serene blue sea ruffled with whitecaps, and the afternoons were long and lazy, like lugubrious and well-oiled pieces of eternity stretched out until one hour felt like three.

Doug had just clocked out and was shrugging on his jacket when what looked like a small blue child drifted up the door and knocked.

“Hey,” he said, tiredly. “You’re not allowed back here. Where’s your mum, huh?”

The child’s gloved hands clasped demurely over her chest, right over a white star printed there, collarbone to collarbone. She was dressed like a doll, pristine in carefully coordinating shades of pressed blue and starch white. She must’ve been to the face painter’s sturdy stall down on the beach, because her face was entirely the colour of faded jeans. To match, her hair was some pale blue, like a misty sky.

“Hello,” she said in the startlingly adult voice of a mature woman, “I am not a human child.”

With a start, Doug glanced her over, reassessed her proportions, and immediately apologised, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Sorry about that ma’am-“

“I am over five thousand years old. I watched your race leave the dirt and build your civilisations from the bones of your elders.” She didn’t even twitch she spoke.

Doug stared at her incredulously. Did it look like he was in the mood for a joke? He was too tired for this. There was always some wit who thought it would be funny to mess with the guard on duty. Doug had thought himself free of that today, but apparently he’d counted too soon. The hair that covered her eyes stared back, unconcerned.

“Look,” he said finally, “I don’t know why you’re here, but I think you ought to leave.”

He scrounged for his car keys in his jeans pocket and started walking away. He was off shift, and strange small blue women couldn’t keep him from the comfort of a cup of coffee and his sofa back at the small flat he rented. It wasn’t the most polite thing he could have done, but he’d pulled double shift and hadn’t slept last night, up until midnight or quarter past one, the TV flickering silently in the background, a warm cup in his hands, too tired to sleep.

“I am here to tell you something.” Unperturbed, she ghosted along next to him, her dress staying strangely still, as if she didn’t walk at all. Only the strands of her hair fluttered slightly as the wind brushed it.

“You don’t even know who I am,” said Doug, sharper than he intended. He didn’t like weirdoes. He didn’t like weirdoes that followed him even more.

“No. But I know what you’re going to do.” She didn’t look up at him as she spoke, and maybe it was his training as a guard, but it rang like a threat. He stopped, no longer sure he wanted to lead her to his car, and crossed his arms.

“You are going to go home,” she said. Her utter poise and soft spoken voice made the whole thing seem like a holy reading of ancient scripture, unearthed just now from crumbling dirt, the kiss of time brushed away by the careful application of archaeology. “You will eat last night’s leftovers, curry. You will watch the television until you fall asleep on the settee with your plate on your lap. Tomorrow morning you will go into work.”

Doug opened his mouth interact, but inexorably, like the creep of a glacier carving its passage through solid rock, she continued, and eventually he simply sunk down and sat on the kerb, his face ashen.

“You will work all day and do the same thing when you get home. You will do this all week, all month.” Impossibly, her voice modulated, lost some of its distance and became soft. “You will take one sick day in three years, and it will be at your mother’s funeral. Breast cancer.”

Doug’s head jerked up, but she was still staring ahead, untouched by his distress. He stared at her, the sunlight gilding her skin deep and blue, like the untouched waters of a still pool. Her dress did not touch the floor. She didn’t touch the floor. A cold feeling ran down Doug’s spine at the clear inch of space between the hem of her dress and the pavement.

 _Is this some sort of hoax – some joke?_ He felt suddenly sick.

“You will learn the boats here by heart,” she told him quietly, “and in six years time you will notice when there is a new boat in the dock. You will be shot through the thigh by a smuggler and will spend many weeks in hospital. You are forced to resign from your job. The payout for the injury will not be enough to support the flat that you have been living in. You will move to a smaller one, nearby the train station, and you will wake up every night when the trains come past your window and make the walls rattle. You will take up a job in the local supermarket. It makes your injury ache and you hate it there, but it pays your bills.

You will work there, uninterrupted, and die alone of a heart attack due to your heightened cholesterol and bad diet when you are fifty three, a month from your birthday, leaving your last surviving family, your sister, to pay for your funeral. You will be cremated, and your ashes will be scattered next your mother’s grave plot in Winslough Cemetery.”

In the ringing silence that followed, Doug’s heartbeat thudded dully in his ear, sick with a sense of hopeless urgency, and a despair consumed him at the bleak future she had outlined. He could see it. He had had curry last night, cooking it the way he made it took hours, but he’d had the time.

“How – how do you-“

“My name is Sapphire,” she said. She looked at him, and spread her hands out, like offering some sort of comfort. He inhaled. On her right palm was a deep, clear stone, flawless, and he knew without a doubt that it was a sapphire. “I see the most certain future.”

“The most certain?”

“Nothing is certain, not completely. Even the most certain futures can be changed with a single choice.” She lifted her hands and parted her fringe, revealing one single brilliant blue eye which stared at him steadily, with the gravity of age and tiredness so familiar to his own that he felt himself involuntarily moved. She dropped the fringe, and he felt his tongue in his mouth again, remembered how to speak.

“What are you?” Doug whispered, horrified, awed, some combination that was them both.

“My name is Sapphire,” she repeated. “I started a war to protect your planet from my own kind, and I’m hoping you can show me why.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“You don’t even know me!”

“I’d like to.” She floated up, and Doug gulped to see he was right, she was unconnected to the Earth completely, without even feet. “Beach City, the temple.”

She paused, and then Sapphire bestowed him with a soft, faint smile. “Lapis likes knock knock jokes.”

“Wait- where are you going?” Doug shouted, jumping to his feet. She was drifting further away, and some sense of the intangible prompted him to run after her, but it was as if she moved on a rug pulled away from the rest of world, smoothly she slid away.

Doug Maheshwaren stood in the silence Sapphire left behind, knowing nothing but that the foundations of his world had been thoroughly shaken.

“Beach City.”


	32. gemswap 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie visits the gems.

“Are you sure they’re in?” Her father asked Connie warily, peering into the darkness of the cave mouth that hid the warp pad inside the temple. He had his hands stuffed into his pockets, and he eyed the temple’s entrance with trepidation. Doug had never really liked the weirdness of Connie’s mother’s side of the family; Connie was thankful that he let her stay with the Gems every weekend anyway.

The obnoxious white gleam of the oblong trailer Connie stayed in whilst with the gems edged round the corner, seemingly deserted. The sun was setting in a blaze of warm pinks, and the ocean glittered deep orange, the wind blowing warm and temperate. It always seemed as if bad weather was something that happened to other towns that weren’t Beach City. They’d left her father’s car back on the road and crossed the beach on foot, sand sinking into their shoes, Connie’s rucksack slung over her father’s shoulder, both of them puffing a bit as the sand slid and slipped around their feet.

“I’m sure,” said Connie, impatiently. She rose up on her tiptoes, trying to catch a glimpse of Jasper’s massive frame or Peridot’s distinctive triangular hair. Where were they? The Gems were absent-minded, Lapis especially, and Jasper could get a little carried away, but surely Peridot’s obsessive schedule would have reminded her that Connie was coming today?

Her father wouldn’t leave her alone without being certain that the gems were there to look after her, he’d even take her back home. Connie had spent all of the dreary and long week at school looking forward to seeing the Gems, hearing about their latest heroic battles, a tantalising world like the ones she read about in books and longed to experience herself. The heroines in her books didn’t have to do maths homework, or violin practice, and they didn’t have to sit alone in the library at lunchtimes, either.

Connie took her first cautious step onto the rock of the temple floor. A curious itch in the sapphire gem on Connie’s right hand was the only warning she got before suddenly a blur of blue and green rocketed out of the darkness, shrieking almost as loudly as Connie herself. She reacted on instinct, her arms windmilling as she lashed out with a kick, getting a very satisfying _crack_ and a yelp in response.

“Oh no, I am so sorry!” Connie cried.

The blue and green blur had resolved themselves into Lapis and Peridot, respectively, the latter holding her cracked visor in dismay. Lapis was snorting with laughter, her wings stirring up little eddies of dust as she hovered in place. A great booming sound came from behind them, and Connie whirled around to see Jasper almost insensate with laughter, tears trickling from the edges of her eyes and smearing her eyeliner.

“Your – FACE!” Jasper roared, slapping her knee with a percussive crack that echoed off the walls like thunder. Lapis grinned unrepentantly.

“I’m sorry about your visor, Peridot,” Connie said very earnestly.

“Wow, thanks for the apology,” Peridot muttered, glaring at Jasper. “Jump out and scare her, they said. It’ll be funny, they said.”

“Well,” said Doug, “at least you’re all here.”

“Hey, Doug,” said Lapis, utterly unconcerned with his disapproval. “You can go now, we’ve got it from here.”

Jasper strode forward and swung Connie onto her shoulders, much to Connie’s laughing delight. Lapis shot out over their heads like a darting sparrow, and Peridot hurriedly ran after them, yelling insults at Jasper for having longer legs.

“BYE DAD!” she yelled over her shoulder, twisting to give him a brilliant grin.

Her father mustered a weak smile. “Take care, sweetie!”

Jasper’s thunderous laughter drowned out any response she might have made. Connie felt her heart lift, like it was going to soar right out of her chest. This was so much better than school already.


	33. gemswap 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Connie's birthday.

Birthdays weren’t supposed to feel so much like funerals. In Connie’s books, they were sunshine days, accompanied with a confectionery of brightly wrapped presents with frilly bows, towering cakes buckling under the weight of pink piped icing and sickly sweet glazed flowers that melted on the tongue, as insubstantial as the taste of her dead mother’s ashes. Insubstantial because her mother hadn’t left a body – instead, she left Connie.

It wasn’t the Gems’ fault. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, apart from Connie’s, for wanting celebration on a day everyone wanted to mourn a mother she’d never met. Connie didn’t visit the Gems on those days; her father said it was hard for them. Her birthday was spent in solitary confinement, watching the sun bleed away over the neat coverlet on her bed, tracing the sapphire gem on her right hand, dully picking under it, thinking ten–eleven –twelve years ago, it had been a faintly glittering part of someone else.

Downstairs, her father would be rattling, purposeless and uncertain. They would have a greasy take-away with cheap candles and a store-bought cake; he’d give her a new yellow notebook for school, a pencil case, a violin. She’d thank him and they’d both pretend her mother’s ghost wasn’t breathing ice down their necks.

If it was a good year, Doug would put on one of the old movies from the glass cabinet besides the TV, maybe _Pale White and the Seven Elves_ or _Bounty Planet._ They’d immerse themselves in the brightly coloured pictures, flickering over the absorbed silence in the living room. Eventually, the film would end and they could slink off to bed, justifying an early retreat with tiredness or school or work.

If it was a bad year, Doug would talk. The stories would pour out haltingly (he’d never been much the wordsmith), like draining an infection, as he fought for words in a misguided attempt to let his daughter know fragments of her mother. Connie loved and dreaded those years. Learning more about Sapphire was always a double-edged sword.

If it was a particularly bad year, the gems would visit, and they’d gather like awkward strangers around the brown sofa and not look each other the eye. Jasper would inevitably start crying, occasionally pounding Connie’s back as if to reassure her that she was still there. Peridot would fidget and fuss and inevitably insult Doug. Lapis would curl up silently and watch them all, blankly, as Doug hurried back and forth with tea and blankets and platitudes.

The next day was always better. Everyone would try and make up to her then, and they rode the teacups at Funland with her father until she was dizzy with laughter, and made new photos for the album, and sang songs and Jasper would hoist her on her shoulders and maybe Lapis would fly them both into the sky, a screeching Peridot clinging onto her leg. Connie liked to think the day after was actually her birthday, belated, after everyone remembered she existed behind the heavy shadow of Sapphire’s death.

Connie thought maybe she’d prefer it if everyone forgot her birthday existed.


	34. thirdwheels and expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon ask from tumblr.

It didn’t take long for Pink to get frustrated at the elusive but clearly teasing comments Yellow and Blue continually made about White and herself. They seized upon the smallest of things, mentions of training sessions, discussions, private conversations, and turned them into suggestive and bawdy jokes laden with an added meaning that escaped Pink. Inevitably, White would get very flustered and retreat after furious denials.  
Oh, Pink wasn’t confused about what they were implying. And they were hardly ever wrong, too - she smirked, thinking of just how those training sessions tended to go. Only why confused her. Why didn’t Blue make jokes when Yellow and Pink were alone together, why didn’t Yellow tease Blue and White for their singing sessions?  
Determined to get her answers, she cornered Yellow and Blue and demanded to know what was up. “I feel I’m out of the loop here and I don’t like it,” she told them sternly.  
A very amused Yellow had simply pulled Blue into a deep and passionate kiss. White looked away, crossing her arms over her chest in flagrant disapproval.

“Honestly,” she huffed, “Do you two _have_ to suck each other’s faces every time you get the chance?”

Abruptly, Pink understood.  
“Did you only create me because you were sick of watching them without someone for yourself?” She asked White.  
White went blue, lowered her eyes, and muttered something about resource crises and expansion difficulties that fooled nobody. When Pink only raised an eyebrow, she cried, “Well, wouldn’t _you?”_

“Fair point,” Pink conceded.


	35. ageswap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young!White from an alternate universe when Pink Diamond is the eldest runs away with her young counterpart Pink.

It seemed a great idea in theory. Run away, far away from rules and responsibilities and duties, explore the galaxy, come back if and when they felt like it, the two of them against the world, young and ready to swallow it whole.  
Only, Pink hadn’t quite bargained on White being so totally dependent on her. This young White was nothing like Pink’s own ancient lover, she was young and excited and still bright, cheerful. But she was as helpless as a newborn fawn, and she trotted about at Pink’s heels with great big wide eyes that went from flattering to annoying fast. She wouldn’t stop singing either, which wasn’t half bad, and she was a responsive playmate, but-  
She couldn’t just make a decision by herself, and Pink had underestimated her own recklessness.  
They’d stolen a ship. Pink had crashed it chasing a comet, and they’d shivered in the wreckage, scared and lonely and very much children in each other’s arms, and Pink had missed her own old, cautious, sensible White with such a burning passion that she could barely stand to look at this unsatisfying copy. But guilt choked her whenever she went away, because White didn’t seem to be able to function alone at all. She was vulnerable, Pink realised, and Pink could get her to do what she wanted, but it was an almost too-frightening amount of power to know that White would do it without questioning her.  
Her own White held her now, tightly, her nose pressed into Pink’s hair, constricting and too-safe and so dearly beloved and missed that Pink burst into impromptu tears. White fussed her, so tenderly that it made Pink’s heart ache with guilt and she swore again and again to those cold, ancient grey eyes that she would never go away again. She’d never thought that she would miss the jab of the silver chains against her ribs when she embraced White, the long tangle of the cloak, the silent disapproval.   
“You will always leave me,” White chided her softly, as across the room, the strange elder Pink slapped her errant songbird across the face and then hoisted her against the wall and kissed her, the strange inverted tiny, thin Yellow and long, limber Blue she had brought with her laughing and jeering at White’s enthusiasm. “You are young, it’s your duty to.”  
“I won’t take you for granted again, White.”  
“My dear Pink, don’t make promises that you’ll break before the night is out.”


	36. steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just one step at a time that's all you need so if you don't start now, when will you?" Fixed/un-shattered Pink Diamond. - anon ask

_**Step one: Steven** _

“Who are you?! What - Rose Quartz? I-″

“I’m _not_ Rose Quartz! … My name’s Steven. I healed you.”

“You’re… human?”

“Half human, half gem. Rose is my mom. I… I don’t think what she did to you was right. I… I wanted to fix you - please don’t kill me!”

“Tell me how to get out of here, and I won’t crush your miserable hide into a pulp!”

“No! I won’t let you out if you don’t promise not to hurt anyone, and at least _listen_ to what I have to say!”

“… I’m listening, abomination.”

* * *

_**Step two: Pearl** _

“You always were a disobedient-”

“I have a spear, and you have a cracked gem. Be quiet, Diamond. You have no power here, and you have no power over me.”

“How dare-”

“I said, _enough._ Do you think I’ve forgotten how you used me and tossed me aside? What you made the two of us do?”

“… My Pearl-”

“You broke everything that loved you, Pink Diamond. The world was better without you.”

* * *

_**Step three: Jasper** _

“M-My Diamond…? Pink Diamond?”

“Jasper…”

“Is this a trick? Is this - are you-”

“It’s really me. Jasper, I am… I am so sorry. I wish I could’ve-”

“Sorry? I was the one who failed!”

“Never, my Jasper, you never have failed me!” … “Can I still call you that? You are Yellow’s, these days.”

“Always, my Diamond, I will serve you until I turn to dust.”

* * *

_**Step four: Blue Diamond** _

“Blue… Blue… Oh Blue, don’t cry. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here now and I’ll never go away again. Oh Blue… My Blue… Come on, Blue, speak to me. I know there’s a voice under all those tears…” … “You silly thing, Blue. You kept my Zoo going all this time. I love you. I love you. I love you so much. Blue, Blue, it breaks my heart to see you crying like this.”

_“…S-Sorry.”_

“Dear Blue…”

* * *

_**Step five: Yellow Diamond** _

“This isn’t a trick. I promise.”

“What use is a promise from a dead gem?”

“How can I prove to you it’s me?”

“You’ve convinced Blue, but you won’t convince me. You can’t fix shattered gems. I - I tried.”

“Oh… Yellow…”

“Don’t _pity_ me, fake!”

“I will _prove_ I am who I say I am, Yellow. I will.”

* * *

_**Step six: Pink Pearl** _

“M-My Diamond? Have… have I gone mad?”

“No, my Pearl.”

“My Diamond…”

“It’s - it’s all right, my Pearl. You don’t have to serve me again.”

“But I want to! I want to-”

“She’s on Earth, my Pearl. She’s been waiting for you… Will you let her teach you?”

“ _The other pearl?!_ That filthy traitor, I’d sooner-”

“But you won’t. You will learn from her.”

“Is… this another experiment, my Diamond?”

“… If you want it to be, my Pearl…”

* * *

_**Step seven: White Diamond** _

“White… White… can you hear me? Can you… understand me?” … “Of course you can’t. I - I took too long to come back, I guess. They said you were atrophying, but I never thought - Oh, White… please, look at me. Say something, do something.” … “I’ll come back later, White. I - I still love you. I always will. Please… Just don’t - … I’ll come and visit you, every day. I promise.” … “This is all my fault. I am so sorry. I love you so much.”


	37. mud and therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just one step at a time. That’s all you need, but if you don’t start now, when will you?” So this is between Corrupt!White with Jasper perhaps? - anon ask  
> Set in Fixed!Pink Alliance!verse

White is running. They don’t leave her enough breath to sing or shout or cry, not that she would if she could. She staggers half-on-all-fours, the softer parts of her limbs scratched from the thorn bushes she’d charged through. The pulsing of her respiratory system is screaming enough - White can hear her own heart thudding and raw in her light-manifested body.

Lashes of swamp vine slashes her cheeks and slices at her milky eyes. She navigates through hearing alone, blindly charging away from the sound of them following her.

Another pelted stone strikes the softness of her right side, biting deep into the flesh of her rib. She cries out in a hoarse warble, and a vibrant patter of laughter follows her.

The stone throws her off and she twists to one side. Her weak eyes fail to see the crevice in the ground until she falls in it, and skids halfway down a hillside, tearing the huge white sheet she has been given for clothing. She trembles, feeling hellishly cold as the wind whistles through the rents she can’t see with murky grey eyes half blinded by muck. Whimpering, she manages to roll over, exposing the scaley ugliness of her left side, and stuffs her fingers in her mouth to stop herself from shrieking at the onslaught she knows is coming.

She can hear the thunder of their feet as they crest the ridge, the barks of shuffling laughter. Then the jeers come, and with it, slaps of palmsfuls of sticky swamp mud, rich and stinking, half of it organic excrement. Hidden in the mudballs are small hard stones that bruise the flesh beneath the tough scales. Her corruption shields her here, but she still whimpers and quivers when the stones hit the weak flesh of her still human parts.

White Diamond is too attuned to sound, especially with her sight failing, to not recognise these gems on an instant. She counts them off as she recognises them, trying to sketch visualisations of the close, fetid world around her as their mockery echoes off the trees around them. She can even recognise their planet of origin - yes, their kindergarten had been a good one, a productive year, she remembers the shine in Yellow’s eyes as she’d turned to Pink and said-

The memory is cut off by an overwhelming flood of grief, stone-striking intense. She wobbles and wavers and lets herself give great, ugly sobs, and as the first hideous snorting noise breaks from her flat scaled nostril the gang flinch back, memories of the Song too sharp in their minds.

“She’s crying, again,” one says.

“She always cries!”

“More! Get more mud - I don’t want to see any more white!”

“Shut up, can you hear that?”

Footsteps, of course, White hears them before the gang did. The gang scatter and disperse, hissing threats at White as they go.

She lies there then, wallowing in grief. Her skin is sticky and vile and her sensitive nose reports that she stinks, even more than the old foul smell of usual. White is no stranger to cruelty, and in battle, overwhelmed, it is best to curl up and protect her soft spots until it all blows over.

“I wondered why you were late,” Jasper says gruffly from the top of the muddy lip White’s falling body had created. “… Are you going to tell me who these pathetic cowards are, this time?”

White sniffles but makes no other sound. She hears Jasper sigh.

“Up you get,” she says.

White shakes her head, minutely. She has had enough. Enough of the pain and the fear and the humiliation. She just wants to stay there forever, safe and still, and let herself go.

“The way I see it,” says Jasper, grunting a little - White wonders what she is doing, maybe she is crouching, “You’ve got two options. Either you give up and it all ends here. Everything you are, everything you will be, forget it. You’re the gem you are, and you can’t change that - good or bad, but it’s your choice to start changing things around. You regret what you did in the past? You don’t make up for it by sitting down there letting them hit you and feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not going to get easier the longer you put it off so you’re gonna make it harder and harder for yourself. Or, you can get up - just one step at a time. That’s all you need, but if you don’t start now, when will you?”

White exhales, noisily. She thinks of all the gems she has failed over the years, especially, particularly, Yellow and Blue.

Then she begins the slow, laborious process of rolling over and getting up.

She hears more than sees the smile in Jasper’s voice when she says, proudly, “You’ve got crystal in you yet, Diamond.”


	38. worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink demands to see Green Diamond.

She’d wanted the demonstration. Had demanded it even, yanking on Blue’s sleeve and poking a blushing Yellow until they both had looked to White, who had melted at Pink’s eager smile. Pink had wanted to know what they made together, the diamond that Blue and Yellow were supposed to be.  
Green Diamond.  
Their fusion dance was laughably short. Yellow’s gem didn’t glow at all, only when Blue had half enveloped her in light, overtook her, was she swept away by the fusion. They doubled in height, then just as quickly shrunk down until they were only a head taller than White standing across them across the tamped down arena. The light faded off of Green’s form, and there she stood, quietly confident, lips already quirked into a smirk.  
She was perfect, as perfect as White or Pink. Only the darker green freckles and lines of impurities marred her emerald skin, and her eyes were piercing jade, hard, sharp. She had Yellow’s strength and Blue’s softness, and only one gem in the centre of her chest.  
“Where’s the other gem?” Pink had asked. Her pearl had blinked at her, unable to answer to the question. Yellow and Blue’s pearls were already sweeping into their own fusion dance, long and intricate and pleasing to the eye as pearls must be.  
Green Diamond wasn’t looking at them, though. From her glowing gem, she pulled an enormous claymore, settled into an easy stance, and grinned at White Diamond across the other end of the arena.  
“Care to dance, my Diamond?”  
“It depends on whether you will step on my toes as much as last time,” White retorted, springing into the air, her mace appearing in a flash of light. Green barely blocked it with a resounding clash. Unperturbed, White spun away again, lighter than air and twice as hard to catch.  
Pink watched, her heart in her mouth. She hadn’t expected Green to be so huge, so terrifying, so perfectly in sync. Green only managed to land three hits on White, all of them glancing, but Pink cried out at each one.  
When it was over, and Green had snapped apart into a groaning Yellow and Blue, Pink rushed to White and flung herself at her, squeezing her tightly enough that White huffed for breath.  
Chuckling, White lifted Pink and spun her, her eyes glittering and bright with battle-fever and excitement. “Were you worried for me, my dear Pink? Against a pair of shameless defects?”  
“I wasn’t!” Pink protested hotly, the flush on her cheeks belying how much she had enjoyed White’s show of strength. “I was hoping Green would beat you!”  
White sneered. “Defeat me!” She threw her head back. “Hah!”  
She dipped Pink and kissed her deep and hard, and when they parted, some of the heat had tempered and deepened in White’s pale eyes, until they were as soft and dark and smoky as dusk. “You were worried,” she repeated, a little smugly. “You were concerned for me, Pink.”  
“I wasn’t really,” Pink muttered. “I knew you could do it.”


	39. seduction styles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Diamonds are in love with random, oblivious gems.

Amethyst doesn’t realise Blue Diamond loves her until Amethyst throws up on her.  
There is a petrified silence as the petrol-marshmallow mix gleefully swallowed minutes earlier drips slowly down Blue’s collarbone.  
Amethyst expects death, instead she gets Blue inviting her to bathe.   
Amethyst sits on Blue’s nose, watching Mop work. One of Blue’s great eyes opens. She asks teasingly, “Like what you see?”  
“You’re pretty,” Amethyst says awkwardly.  
“Don’t you want me to be more… accessible?” Blue asks.  
“You’re happy as you are,” says Amethyst. “I don’t want sex anyway.”  
“Oh,” says Blue, fervently, “I’m glad it’s not just me.”

* * *

“Does it work?” Yellow asks.  
Diopside flexes the new metal arm, grinning widely. Yellow fusses over the connection to her shoulder, running quick diagnostics.  
Yellow draws a circle on Diopside’s palm.  
“Can you feel anything?”  
“It has nerves?!”  
“Obviously!”  
“I don’t know how I can thank you for this, Yellow.”  
“Use it,” Yellow mutters, her cheeks dark gold.   
“White’s always been complaining that I don’t have two hands to -” Diopside clears her throat, remembering her audience.  
Yellow’s hands drop as if burnt. “Well,” she says tightly, “We must appease White.”

* * *

“You’d fight to the death for me, wouldn’t you?” Pink Diamond asks Jasper, and Jasper nods immediately.  
“Nothing matters more to me than your safety and welfare, my Diamond,” Jasper states stolidly.  
“If I know that you are by my side, I never feel unsafe,” Pink confesses. Her head turns away, cheeks turning deep and bright red, almost bashful. “You are so brave and strong, my Jasper.”  
“Thank you, my Diamond.” Jasper salutes stiffly.  
It isn’t until much later that Jasper realises the uncharacteristic compliment was probably also an invitation. She is not entirely sure what to make of it, but answers Pink’s next compliment with one of her own.

* * *

 

“I’m uncertain as to your usefulness, Citrine,” White says coldly but truthfully.  
Citrine is Yellow-made, sturdy, clever, a Quartz turned storekeeper, only Yellow would think of it. “I’ll keep all your stores in order, my Diamond.”  
“I have Pearls for that.” White circles her. Her tawny skin doesn’t blanch. She has eyes like gold coins, smiles. “And can you sing or dance?”  
“I can if my Diamond wishes,” Citrine says hesitantly.  
White waves a hand irritably. “I’ll teach you. Prove to me that you have a place among my court.”  
“I won’t let you down,” Citrine promises.  
“No, you won’t.”


	40. of dolls pale and pink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl reminisces about her relationship with Pink Pearl during a spar. Warning, contains implied sexual abuse, dubious consent, and experimentation on sentient beings. And a little Jasper/Pearl, Rose/Pearl, Pink Pearl/Pearl.

Immortality lent reality a transient quality. The Crystal Gems had been dead to Homeworld for over five-thousand years and yet it still felt like Pearl was greeting every new day expecting a battlefield, fingers twitching for a material sword that she no longer even needed. She used to use holo-pearls, papery, pale things that her imagination could skew the faces of ghosts over, to fight away the relentless recklessness, the irritable twitch of mundanity. Nowadays, there was Jasper.

It was better to use Jasper. She refused to be anything but herself, and it was a triple blessing and torture. Fighting Jasper tasted like the desperate last gasps of Homeworld come again, the soured tang of victory on Crystal Gem tongues, the victory that had turned to ash in their monstrous jaws. Fighting Jasper tasted like realising the door to Home was closed forever, like abandonment, like the five-thousand years of unexpected grief afterwards.

“You are nothing like any other pearl I’ve met,” Jasper told her gruffly with a thin line from Pearl’s spear-point traced into her sturdy neck.

“You’ve met many pearls, have you, Jasper?” Pearl retorted. Her cheeks were already flushed and warm from their exercise, and her small hand was dwarfed by Jasper’s huge grasp when she offered a hand down to help her up.

“Some,” admitted Jasper. “I knew Pink Pearl… before.”

It was the little things. Unexpected questions from Steven on mission, visiting a familiar mural, a comment from Lapis, a wishful glint in earth-born Amethyst’s eye that sparkled of kin left in space. It was the littlest things that brought back memories that struck harder than Jasper’s fists, memories that caught like fishhooks, all the sharper from over five-thousand years of repression.

They were dead to Homeworld. Pearl thought about the gems she had left behind, the ones who had disagreed, the faces that she had naïvely never considering losing. She had been full to bursting, saturated, overwhelmed with _Rose, Rose, Rose,_ the phantasmagorical heaven of their together after the war, nothing else, no one else mattered. It was better to use Jasper, Jasper couldn’t pierce her through the way a holo-pearl had, the way a hollow pearl had wanted to. But that crimson-amaranth pearl had been nothing if not substantial, alive, breathing, colourful and lurid in a way Pearl’s pale white sisters had never been, even if she had been _hollow, hollow, hollow_.

Pink Pearl. Pink Diamond’s own pearl. There was something sinful in remembering her. There had always been something vaguely sinful about her. It lived and breathed in those rose-stained corridors, in those hot, warm days before Rose _,_ when Pearl was freshly-torn from the cold white halls of White Diamond’s labyrinthine palace, alone and frightened in a palace where she alone bore her face. Pink Pearl hadn’t looked anything like her, of course, but there was something comforting in their shared sharp nose, slender bodies, something that had felt like sisterhood and turned into hell.

“Yes,” Pearl heard herself say, strangely, “I… remember her.”

Jasper squinted at her, the sunlight bathing the Sky Arena gleaming off her white hair and sweat-glistening muscles. She was patting the towel Pearl had handed to her over her dampened uniform, an austere yellow diamond replaced by a small pink star, mottled, as everything about Jasper was these days.

“I used… to belong to Pink Diamond,” Pearl explained haltingly. It was before Jasper’s time, after all, by the time she had emerged, Pearl had been the Renegade. “I was a gift from White Diamond…”

An old, not quite forgotten nausea roiled in her stomach. Pearl hadn’t eaten in over five-thousand years, but her lips still remembered the taste of strawberries and plums, the juice running down Pink Pearl’s chin – _“It’s only a little game, a little experiment, Mistress wants to watch.”_

And Pink Diamond had loved watching Pink Pearl play her little games. Had loved to test her pearl, her own loyal little lab rat, Pink Diamond’s little experiments that left Pink Pearl cringing and weeping, playing her little games in the cell the pearls shared, _“One, two, against the wall, three, four, down the hall, five, six-“_

Pearl had found it annoying, until Pink Diamond had grown curious enough to see where the differences in White’s design to her own lay. Her experiments, dispassionate, cruel, pushing with a Diamond’s touch that knew exactly how much a gem could take – and then adding a little more, and it was impossible to resist her. Pink Pearl’s bony body had juddered up close to hers in the cell – counting helped. Pearl recited the stories of colonies that had long since turned to dust. Pink Pearl had laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Sometimes Pearl joined in.

“She mentioned that you used to…” Jasper trailed off, uncomfortably.

“Play together?” Pearl bit out. She laughed, high and strange. “Yes, she loved to play. With me, particularly.”

_“Shh,” murmured Pink Pearl, and her fever-bright eyes were shining with delight, twirling a knife dangerously between her fingers, “Shh, shh, pretty, you look very pretty like this.” Pearl had fought back gagged screams, and Pink Pearl had choked out that awful little giggle, muffling it against her shoulder. And Pink Diamond’s remote eyes had watched, divine and pleasured, pleased to watch her soft-skinned pink little doll breaking her little white one, her little singing dove. “Sing for me,” she would command, and Pink Pearl would sing, husky, raw, half-giggling, and Pearl’s mouth would be stuffed with tape._

It was always pink over white, to the point where Pearl had dryly joked to the next quartz Pink had selected for special treatment that maybe Pink Diamond had a complex. That quartz, a stunning Rose Quartz with eyes that softened with healing tears, had giggled a little. It hadn’t sounded anything like the twisted little noise Pink Pearl made to Pearl, half-in-love already.

“I was going to say serve,” Jasper paused, and then said her name all in a rush, like it pained her to savour it, “Pink Diamond. Together.”

“Yes,” said Pearl, trying to regain control. She smiled weakly at Jasper. “But that was a long time ago. I don’t know what even happened to her, after.”

Jasper swallowed. There was only one before and after with Jasper. “White Diamond took her,” said Jasper. “She had shattered all of her other pearls.” Jasper had a soldier’s bluntness, and Pearl had a soldier’s numbness to news, but there was still a hint of softness in Jasper’s voice, and a flinch hidden in Pearl’s still lips.

All of her sisters were dead. There had been hundreds of them, once. Hundreds of pearls identical to her, singing and slipping and swaying through white marble palaces that had once been her home. But once was no longer, and she hadn’t been a white pearl for a long time. She would be unrecognisable to them with her colourful clothes, her capable hands, her bold stare.

“Oh,” Pearl said, numbly. “At least she wasn’t recycled.”

“She probably should have been,” Jasper said. “After…” She sucked in a sharply pained breath, again, “Pink Diamond was…. shattered, she talked about you… a lot. More than Peridot does about that camp whining hearts show.”

_Pink Pearl had had long nails, more claws than anything else, sharpened to a deadly point. They had fought, Pearl keeping those evil nails well away from her, cheating only a little with a lock Rose had shown her in one of their clandestine training sessions. Pink Pearl had been angry and bitter and a little lonely with Pearl gone again and again, leaving her to shake alone in their barren cell, with no explanation._

_“Tell me where you go!” Pink Pearl demanded. Pearl had laughed at her and snatched one of the silks from the floor, twisting Pink Pearl’s wrists into a quick knot she had learnt from Pink Pearl herself. From experience, she knew it would be impossible to unpick._

“It’s Camp Pining Hearts,” Pearl corrected absently. She attempted to grin. “Nice to know she missed me.”

_Pink Pearl writhed impotently. She had large eyes that were nearly red in darkness, and when they were full of fear, they seemed even darker in her soft pink skin. “Let me go!”_

_“No,” Pearl had said. “We’re going to play a game, by my rules now.” She leaned in close and gave Pink Pearl her own sickening grin._

_Pink Pearl stopped moving at that, realising she wasn’t going to get free. She had still looked afraid as she dared Pearl to do her worst, and Pearl had laughed at her again._

“She absolutely hated you,” Jasper replied, smirking. “Her every other word to me was begging me to shatter you next time I saw you, then changing her mind, shattering was too good for you. I almost snuck into a Crystal Gem camp with her once, but we were caught by your border guards.”

_Pearl had kissed her like Rose was teaching her how, nothing like rough duty-forced crushing kisses but soft, lips dragging between mingling breaths, and Pink Pearl had frozen, uncertain. She hadn’t looked so scared anymore, and by the third time Pearl had kissed her, she had almost softened, almost melted. She was a quick learner, too, and when they had kissed a fifth time, long and lingering, Pearl had looked into her eyes that sparkled and glittered like freshly poured wine in moonlight, deep and impossible and dark, and said, “This game needs you to say yes first.”_

_“Yes,” said Pink Pearl without hesitation._

“Sounds romantic,” Pearl teased, and Jasper scoffed. It was a magnificent movement full of rounded cups of orange muscle shrugging, a toss of her sweat-darkened hair. Pearl watched appreciatively, Jasper’s golden eyes seemed to wink. 

_Afterwards, they had lain together in the patterns that seemed so familiar with Rose, a quartz that knew the secret language of bodies and warmth and touch, so alien to cold thin pearls. Pink Pearl had been stiff, but her eyes had been huge and warm, and she had curled her arms around Pearl’s waist to keep her close, possessive, scared, thirsty. Pearl had stared into the darkness over her hair and thought about Rose, and smiled, and Pink Pearl’s cheeks bloomed with tender colour, and she hid her face in Pearl’s shoulder. She was softened, then, made vulnerable, the angles of their bodies polished on each other. There was no insane giggling, no shivering, just Pink Pearl’s head nestled under Pearl’s chin, those soft crimson eyes occasionally darting up to hers to check that Pearl had no intention of moving or punishing or playing._

“Diamonds, no. That thing was so poisonous it could kill at thirty-metres. Even _I_ wouldn’t,” Jasper stated boldly, with an affected shudder. Pearl had to laugh.

_Pearl, Rose, a few likeminded individuals, had used to hold gatherings in an abandoned maintenance corridor. Nothing special, only a few gems off shift, just talking. Illicitly talking, together, and the quartzes shuddering together for the approval of a pretty pearl. It had been harmless, and Pearl had taken Pink Pearl once, wanting to show her Rose, wanting to show her the tantalising glimpses of individuality that being snatched away from her existence amidst a thousand copies of herself had shown her._

_Pink Pearl’s devotion to Pink Diamond had been absolute. There was no point in even asking who had told her about the meetings. Pink Diamond’s punishment had been vicious. Pearl had lain in their cell, shivering with phantom agonies from a rushed regeneration. Pink Pearl had slunk in, and for a moment, the hard bunk dipped with her tentative weight._

_Pearl opened one eye, violent with hate, unable to speak for the shudders of pain flickering through her projection. Pink Pearl _didn’t speak, didn’t offer a defence, didn’t apologise, didn’t even chide Pearl for thinking that Pink Pearl would ever resist the will of her Diamond.__ _Pink Pearl had only withdrawn to a corner and shivered to herself in silence. It just made Pearl hate her more._

_When Pearl had run away with Rose, she had left without a goodbye and never looked back._

Pink half-smiled at that. “So there is something that frightens the indomitable Jasper, and it’s an untrained pearl.”

Jasper scowled at her, and stormed off to the warp-pad. Pearl followed her, still chuckling to herself.

It had been over five-thousand years, and immortality had a way of blunting the edges from memories. Some things were better left in the past.


	41. demoted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink survives Earth, but later comes to realise that her failure has cost her standing in the eyes of the other Diamonds.

The realisation is sudden and sharp, and afterwards, Pink will wonder in a dull fog of despair how she let herself sink so far.

Meetings with them all are rare now. Yellow and Blue present their reports to White, Yellow’s kindergartens on Earth are flourishing (at her side, Jasper shifts uncomfortably), Blue has found a viable new planet for colonisation. Afterwards, Pink shuffles forward and gives her own meager report, eyes downcast. The thriving colony Yellow has left her is still thriving. At least that, Pink hasn’t managed to ruin. She doesn’t tell them about any of her experiments, or anything else. They are unwilling to listen these days, after how badly Pink’s experiments went last time.

There is a painful lump in Pink’s throat. _Rose Quartz._

White dismisses them all with waves of her hand, but no one leaves yet. Blue and Yellow move to a corner, heads lowered and bent together, presenting a picture of matching docility. White speaks to them, kissing Blue’s cheek, caressing Yellow’s shoulder. When she gestures, they turn on their heel in unison and walk away in step, holding hands.

Then White comes to her, puts her deathly cold hand on Pink’s cheek and lifts her head. White offers her a chilly sort of smile and presses her thin, hard lips against Pink’s soft red ones. Pink freezes, pulls away as soon as it is polite. 

“What are you doing?” Pink asks her. “I don’t- _White.”_ Her hands are against White’s chest, pushing her back slightly, the silky shift tangling between her fingers.

White stares at her with such a dreadfully dead look in her cold grey eyes that Pink feels the bone-white claw of fear creep into her heart. It is a struggle to remember that Pink has kissed that palely angled face, loved the creases around White’s eyes, the locks of stiff, upright hair, the glittering jaw and faintly radiant skin, the heavy pale eyes. Like a dream, Pink stares at her, and recognises the expression on White’s face far too slowly. 

The curl of her lip, the slight flare of her nostril. Coaxing warmth and colour from White had once been the delight of Pink’s time, and Pink knows her disdain as the slap in the face it is.

White settles her hands on Pink’s hips. It is almost rough, for White, who allows herself to only be cruel with Yellow and Blue, Yellow whose hardy body and tortured desires can bear it, and Blue who can’t and whose tears make it so much sweeter, even if her vengeance is twice as crippling. White has only ever been gentle with Pink before, incredibly tender, as if more than anything she fears she will break her.

“You’ve not been yourself.” White states. There is no inflection in her voice. “I want you how you used to be.”

“No, you don’t-” Pink tries to step back, but White holds her firm.

“You will listen to me,” White overrides her, sternly. “And you will obey me.”

Pink does nothing when White tries to kiss her again. Her hands slide stiffly into White’s hair and cup the curve of her skull. When they break apart, Pink rests her head on White’s shoulder and swallows back tears.

Somehow, the knowledge that White no longer takes care to preserve her hurts worse than the sting of failure. She is imperfect, subordinate, just like Yellow and Blue. But unlike Yellow and Blue, it is all Pink’s fault that she has become _disposable._


	42. ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven manages to fix Pink Diamond's shards, but Pink Diamond brings Rose Quartz's consciousness with her when they reform. The result is an amalgamation. Pearlrose, slight Pinkrose, Pink/Pearl.

Rose doesn’t look quite how she used to, and Pink Diamond doesn’t, either. When they are Rose, her curls are a little too straight, her soft lips slightly too quick to a smirk, and her breasts heavier, eyelashes thicker, the unforgettable cracked diamond emblazoned on her stomach the worst of all. Pink Diamond has hints of curls against her cheeks, and she is a little chubbier than before, and the bitter cruelty in her diamond-pupil eyes is hidden behind soft words, and somehow that’s even worse. 

Pearl knows it’s still there. She can taste Pink Diamond when she kisses Rose - or rather, when Rose kisses her, her fist in Pearl’s hair, the curve of a smile on Rose’s lips. She’s more demanding now, angrier, possessive, _“my Pearl”_ no longer sounds the sweet nickname Rose had used it as. Pearl feels the marks she leaves behind and wonders why she is letting this happen.

Pink Diamond looks her with sly, unhidden hunger, asks her, softly,  _“Do you remember?”_ As if Pearl could forget what she had done to her, Pink Pearl’s face in the dim light shining with tears and wild, manic joy, nails and claws and songs that were screams for mercy. Pearl stares up into her old mistress’ glittering eyes and feels terror bolt down to the centre of her light projected form.

Pearl thinks she could deal with that, though, if it wasn’t what they were both doing to _Steven._ Rose twisted his perceptions of Pink Diamond, and Pink Diamond fouled his view of Rose. Rose’s motherly kiss on his forehead seemed virulently fake when contrasted with the avid, greedy curiosity of Pink, slowly pulling apart her latest experiment - Pearl remembered putting Pink Pearl back together after playtime, those awful giggles following every step she made around the room. Pink Pearl had laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and Pearl could hardly look at Steven without remembering her cruel pretty face, alight with sadistic joy.

“I’m watching you,” Pearl tells them when they are in Pink Diamond’s shape, the other Crystal Gems arranged like dolls by Pink’s knees.

Pink licks her lips and breathes in Rose’s voice, “How _exciting,_ my Pearl.”


	43. of fusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short prompts from tumblr about the Diamond fusions.

_"I will take back what is mine and kill anyone who stands in my way."  Ivory and Purple._

“I-I’ll take back what’s m-mine and kill anyone who stands in my w-way,” Ivory threatened, though the effect was spoiled by her shaking, the tears that hadn’t quite dried on her sallow cheeks, the way she grabbed at Purple like a lifeline, the tissues still crumpled at her side and the fact that they were curled up in a locked cubicle on the third floor girls’ loo, the grottiest one in the school, probably catching all sorts of diseases from the floor.  
Purple stroked her pale, stiff hair and her pale, stiff shoulders, kissing her temple and cooing soothing noises as Ivory settled; inside, she was a heaving mess of chilly fury, she hated it when Sugilite mocked Ivory, and hated it even more when they took advantage of Ivory’s fears to steal from her - only a hairband, but a hairband Purple had bought herself for Ivory at a craft fair when they were seven.   
“I’ll be having words with Alexandrite about keeping her family under control, and I’ll notify Red, as well,” she promised Ivory, and added, silently, that that supercilious bitch had better watch her step - Opal was still innocent and gullible enough to be trusting and Sugilite wasn’t the only one who could be an effective bully.

* * *

 

_"I am a pheonix, burn me and I shall return, raising from the ashes." Orange Diamond and Cyan._

“I’m a phoenix,” Orange proclaims drunkenly, waving her glass around and nearly splashing her wife.  
Cyan gives her a sharp look and retorts, “What, because we’re all waiting for you to finally die?”  
“No,” Orange scowls muggily at her, dropping the glass and crawling towards Cyan, trying to attract her wife’s attention enough for one kiss - an increasingly unlikely one as her alcohol-reeling self approaches, “‘Cause if you burn me, I’ll return… and raise - the ashes - huh, Annniiiiee, c’mere-!”

* * *

 

_"This is extreme, even for you." Orange Diamond and Cyan Diamond._

Orange wakes up tied hand and foot to their bed, a gag in her dry mouth and a pounding headache underneath her sandy eyes, reeking of sex and booze and drugs, the cocktail of a good time turned poison once too many; instinctively, her gut churns with fear and nausea as her mind gropes back through the darkness of her memory - where is Cyan, what has Orange done, to her, to herself?  
She makes a questing gurgling noise, quietly because of her head and because Cyan will never be far away with Orange in restraints, and Cyan steps out of the half-gloom, the shuttered light yellowish on the huge purple bruise on her cheek, her swollen eye, the bruises Orange doesn’t remember giving mottled on her skin, looking tired, hollow and remote, sunken into herself; without much begging - uncharacteristic, she’d make Orange plead for hours if she’d managed to get her into this situation normally - Cyan comes and unfastens the gag, smoothing Orange’s hair back from her face.  
“This is extreme, even for us,” Orange whispers in a voice too strained for the old and worn out apologies, and Cyan nods, understanding the words unsaid, speaks softly, “Rehab starts on Tuesday, it’s your turn this time.”


	44. shorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short prompts from tumblr.

_"Shattered dreams can drive anyone mad." Pink and Yellow, maybe just after Pink survived Cyan? Love that AU. (Set after Pink Diamond has been tortured by the fusion Cyan.)_

Pink Diamond no longer screamed or cried or begged for comfort when she was scared, instead, she shook, and the only sign of her distress was her projection mutely flickering against the background of white noise of distant organic sounds and clear strong lights she had requested to make her padded cell as far as possible from the opulent rooms Cyan had broken her in - even the bedsheets were deliberately rough, the shower only ran too hot, the view was of a factory yard in which unbothered peridots scuttled to and fro, far distant; there were guards too, a platoon of Amethysts, one of which had run to get Yellow when the shaking started on their monitors.   
Yellow sat on the ground, watching the blanket Pink was hiding under flicker and lift irregularly as the body underneath it glitched and wavered; tentatively, she stretched out her foot until it poked Pink somewhere under the blanket and waited for her to feel safe enough to come out.  
“It’s all right, Pink, it was only a dream,” she whispered through a mouthful of glass shards, “They can drive anyone mad.”

* * *

 

_"your ancestors would be ashamed if they saw you"_

“Your ancestors would be ashamed if they saw you now,” Pink Pearl hissed, struggling ineffectually against the leash Garnet had thoughtfully provided after the third time Pink Pearl had tried to scratch out Pearl or Steven’s eyes without warning; she seemed to have little quarrel with Garnet or Amethyst, but plenty of hate for the pair she believed had murdered her Diamond.

Pearl paused, caught off guard by Pink Pearl’s words, for as far as Pearl knew she was the last of her own ancestors, the last of the Era One White Pearls, created in the earliest stages when White Diamond still considered them special enough that her first memory was of enormous glittering pale hands manipulating her out of the slick waters of her birth; Pearl had been serving White Diamond, running for the quartzes and staging playful dance-fights, long before Pink Diamond had emerged, naked and beautiful, and long before Pink Diamond had finally deigned to take a pearl, strange, broken thing that it was, half-mad from the games she played with it, but Pearl and her sisters had felt only relief with the great cruel eye of Pink Diamond’s boredom turned to a different pearl than them.

“Sometimes I forget how young you are,” Pearl muttered, then, almost sympathetically, “It doesn’t have to be like this - you know we won’t hurt you, don’t you?”

* * *

 

_"i need advice. sex advice." with pink and yellow diamonds perhaps?_

“I need advice,” Pink tells her bluntly, “Sex advice.”  
“What?” Yellow says, tiredly.  
“The humans in the Zoo have stopped breeding. Even direct commands from their Voice system isn’t enough.” Pink paces. The genuine concern in her voice stirs Yellow into vaguely caring.  
“Try romantic lighting?” She suggests facetiously.  
“What’s more, they’ve started fighting. One of the males killed another last week. I have no idea what’s making them this irritable, they haven’t been so,” her lip curls, “uncivilised since I retrieved them from Earth.”  
“What do you want me to do about it?”  
Pink sighs. “Just listen, I suppose.”

* * *

 

_❝that one has the heart of a lion❞ any;_

“That one has the heart of a lion,” Yellow Diamond says gruffly, peering down at the swaddled children against Connie’s chest, one of whom is diligently gumming her enormous finger.  
“High compliments from you,” Connie teases, keeping careful watch over Yellow’s finger pressing lightly over her son’s heart, in case she pushes too hard; though she needn’t worry, Yellow’s touch is as gentle as a veritably omnipotent twenty foot matriarch must be to avoid crushing her subjects.  
Yellow’s cheeks burns high on her cheekbone, but she huffs and says, “It is my job to recognise the strengths and weaknesses of others - that is all.”

* * *

 _❝why do you keep lying to me?❞ wd/yd;_   
“Why do you keep lying to me?” Yellow demands, shoves White hard against a wall and squeezes her throat in her hands, paying no attention to White’s legs kicking hers, her desperation for breath, fingers scrabbling at Yellow’s wrist; she knows it is useless air, air White only pretends she needs like the perfection she pretends she has, and as ever, catching her at the act and throttling the answers from her is all Yellow can do. “I know you’re lying to me - us - about everything that happened, what we are, what am I supposed to believe?”

* * *

_❝have you ever tried the cakes? they’re actually quite delicious❞ any;_

It’s a formal gallery function. White is trying not to be sick, obsessively fiddling with her cuffs. Someone taps her on the shoulder and she suddenly can’t breathe, because no one warned her the artworks come to life and the woman in front of her is a masterpiece of slinky dress and pink lipstick, a little red tongue poking out to taste the icing on her lip.  
“Have you ever tried the cakes? They’re actually quite delicious,” the woman asks.  
White chokes.  
“I’m sure you are-” White freezes, eyes huge with fluster, “I beg pardon, ma’am!”  
The woman only laughs.

* * *

 

_❝stop!❞ pd and bd;_

“Stop!” Blue begs wheezily, her big clumsy body a little too slow to squirm away from Pink’s darting fingers dancing on her yellow-splashed sides, causing Blue to convulse with laughter in between cursing the horrible little gem and her shiteating grin that thoroughly underestimates Blue and her capacity for revenge.  
“Or what,” Pink demands to know, gleefully teasing, “You’ll get my hair wet?”

* * *

 

_❝you love him?❞ yellow finding out about greg (Set in a momswap with Blue Diamond replacing Rose)_

“You love him?” Yellow demands, bewildered, disgusted, but Blue stands before her with a thick rounded belly bulging with some wriggling organic pup and heavier breasts, the scruffy, fear-scented human clinging onto her thigh - the only part of her he can reach even with Blue standing at her natural height, stunted from the same defect that had left Yellow a gem in name only - and not a speck of shame; no, in this she is terrifyingly, beautifully resolute, and Yellow longs only to stamp the infection taken root in her womb away and restore it to the perfect sterility of gemkind, ageless, sexless, the Blue she has loved and known - somehow, it hurts more to know that Yellow has never a hope of following her with her inability to shapeshift then she does of dissuading her into seeing sense.  
“I do,” vows Blue, and her diamond-sharp eyes are icy and watchful (protective, Yellow realises, but not of her, no, for this snivelling human, not the twin who has suffered and bled and loved for her, as if Yellow would kill it, as if Yellow could kill it with Blue standing in the way), “Our baby… Steven… deserves to know his aunt, if she will have him.”

* * *

 

_"Fuck me," Pink Diamond with Poly-diamond relationship._

“Fuck me, fuck my life,” Pink cries, tossing the controller away, the screen blazing with proof of her inglorious defeat.  
White shoots her a sharp look over the student essays she is making her way through steadily, muttering something about ‘language!’, Yellow mimes faux-sympathy, popping one headphone out.  
“There’s always next time,” she consoles, and Pink harrumphs at her and sprawls over the bed instead.

* * *

 

_"What Do I Want? I want to kiss you a thousand times before undressing you and kissing your flesh a thousand times more." Pink Diamond and White Diamond, pls._

They are close, closer than they should be, and Pink wavers in the confusing welter of hot tangled emotions that come in the relentless pulsing waves of youth, and clings onto the loose filmy substance of White’s robe, feeling the warmth of her skin against her knuckles through the fabric, and asks shakily a question she knows White can’t answer, “What do I want, White?”  
White inhales sharply, with a sound that seems like a curse, and whispers hoarsely instead an answer to a different one, “I… I want to kiss you, a thousand times - b-before undressing you… and kissing your flesh a thousand times more, but I should not - you are not -”  
Pink fists her hands in White’s robe and racks with a sob of urgency she doesn’t quite understand, and White soothes her with gentle embraces and kisses that are careful in their gentle skirting of boundaries; in this moment alone, they have been too honest.


	45. 8KX, 3TN, Tourmaline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some shorts from the perspective of Moonstones 3TN and 8KX, of the three moonstones in Of Pearls and Half Truths. Contains slight nsfw.

Moonstone 8KX doesn’t get to accompany White Diamond often, but it’s always a special treat when she does. For once, 8JL is stuck doing paperwork, and 3TN is on prisoner duty, which means that 8KX gets White Diamond – and more importantly, her entourage – all to herself. She smirks a little, touching the plait that wraps around her head to make sure it’s still perfect, pouts her glittering silver lips, checks the subtle kohl-marks around her eyes. She’s ready. Oh, she’s ready.

She flounces out to join them, immediately feeling White Diamond’s Diopside’s gaze falling on her – and staying there. Moonstone 8KX grins, glances over her shoulder and up at the great brute, the hardness in her green eyes, the intrigue in the stony set of her mouth, the corded muscle of her arm and the metallic gleam of the prosthetic – oh, the stories 8KX has heard about what those metal fingers can do, enough to make a Moonstone doubt…

Getting Diopside would really show 8JL, always strutting around with those airs and graces of hers just because White Diamond keeps her around most, Moonstone 8KX thinks smugly, fending off a bitter stab of jealousy over her kindergarten-sister’s good fortune.

This was _her_ time to shine.

* * *

 

The sisters were bickering again.  
3TN closed her eyes and settled her head back against the wall. The three moonstones had their own room aboard White Diamond’s ship, descending rapidly towards Earth, and 3TN almost wished they weren’t expected to stay there. The black agates and their troops were far more interesting to talk to, and 3TN had hoped that the trip would give her an opportunity to sneak away and catch up with Tourmaline. Tourmaline had been stationed off planet for a while, only recently recalled back to Homeworld and, due to 3TN’s wrangling, sneaked aboard as part of White Diamond’s honour guard. It had been a long time since 3TN had had any privacy with her; she did not expect such a luxury now. But just to see her would be enough.  
8JL was shouting now, 8KX watching with an insufferably smug look. 3TN wished she could put her hands over her ears, but all three of their pearls were in the room, pretending to steadfastly ignore them. Appearances had to be maintained.  
Honestly, thought 3TN, those two had come from the same Kindergarten and never progressed beyond it.   
It was going to be a long trip.

* * *

 

" _Careful_ ," Moonstone 3TN gasped, "Tour-Tourmaline. They'll _see_."

"Maybe I want them to see," Tourmaline's lips mumbled against her neck, her mouth returning again and again to nibble sharp marks on her favourite spot in the dips of 3TN's collarbones. 

3TN laughed breathlessly and pushed down on Tourmaline's head, the long curly dark hair as soft as cat fur under her hands. "Do _you_ want to explain it to 8JL?"

Tourmaline glanced up at her, dark eyes glittering like greenish purple voids, promptly stuck her tongue out, the nearly black shade of a bruised plum, and traced a slick line with it between 3TN's breasts to her gem set between them. 3TN shuddered.

"Fuck 8JL," Tourmaline said, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. "You have the funniest way of ruining the mood, Moonstone."

"It's a talent," 3TN said dryly. "Can we - just cuddle, for a bit?"

Tourmaline grinned. "I think I could deal with that." 

3TN smiled, and sank down awkwardly in the small supply closet she had forced herself into. Her bountiful frame did not like small spaces, at all, but Tourmaline fit on her lap perfectly, like she had been made to sit there.

"I love you, Tourmaline," said 3TN after a pause. "I wish we didn't have to... hide."

"They'd shatter me if they saw me laying my hands on an uppercut like you," Tourmaline said quietly.

"It's not right," Moonstone burst out passionately, and Tourmaline shook her head with a fond little smile.

"I love you. Even when you talk about 8JL when I'm - mm, in the middle of something."


	46. My Demons, Starset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Corrupted White.

White becomes aware that she is going insane.

In hindsight, it seems to be the little things. Her eyesight in her left eye. Her hand, her beautiful, perfect, strong body becoming a warped mimic of what it used to be. Her memory, of her past sins, her past lovers, of Brown Diamond’s regretful eyes and the screams. Her ears, hearing bubbly pink laughter where there is only silence and ghosts. She still sees the bustle of the palace when she rounds corner too fast, the pearls dancing and running, clasping messages to their skinny chests, messages left undelivered with their edges curling up like butter rinds. Their skin has turned to dust and their eyes hollow sockets, but she hears them.

She is reasonably certain that Yellow is real. She seems less real. Sometimes. With golden halfpenny eyes smeary and dark with bloody tears, voice cracked with hard moans, her black-nailed hand curled in a fist around White’s neck and fingers slipping between her thighs to make White sing – howl, really, clawed fingers digging into Yellow’s shoulders, a mockery of her talent, something bestial overlapping her low notes and something shrill in her highs, a savage ecstasy. Yellow doesn’t seem to care that she is fucking something monstrous. Other times Yellow is there, demanding things in low urgent tones, as if she can’t see the fact that Pink is waiting around the corner, giggling and beckoning. White has tried following her, but it only leads to black gaps in her memory, interminable.

“Damnit,” Yellow is snarling at her as she refocuses into reality, “White, look at me!”

She is holding her golden arm. There is blood on her fingers and her shoulder has been caved in. For some reason, White can see all the way into her head, where the flickering light of her song still dances. White’s black mace is on the floor, shards clinging to the powder of it. White looks at Yellow, steadily, and Yellow whispers something and drops to her knees, gathering White to her bloodied and bruised chest and holding her.

White becomes aware that she is losing herself.


	47. Headstrong Trapt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt, Orange Diamond and White. Warning, dubcon.

Orange stands, her four arms crossed, bands of muscle straining under the skin. She’s taller than White Diamond standing, but White is sitting on her marble throne, looking up at Orange, her chin in one laconic hand, her lidded gaze frankly admiring.

“What a monster the two of you make,” White breathes. “It’s truly disgusting.”

Her eyes glitter with cupidity, her tongue licks her lips in a smooth, wet, rolling motion Orange is fairly certain is supposed to be exactly as seductive as it is. She drums her fingers against her chin, showcasing them, how long and precise they are.

Shifting her weight, Orange growls low in her chest, taps her blunt nails against one arm, settling back her thick shoulders with a pop of bone. She is three seconds old, her mind a mishmash, and a welter of confusing desires are chasing through her like dogs after meat. She wants to sink her fists into warm flesh. She wants to make White scream, but her components are disagreeing on exactly _how._ She shakes her head, her thick mane swaying, lets her hands fall into balled fists at her side. White Diamond swallows, leaning back faintly on her throne as if the display unmans her, and shakily crosses her legs.

“You’re a liar,” Orange snarls. “And you don’t belong there, like you’re above me. I know what you want.”

“You do, do you, fusion?” White asks, voice dripping condescendingly. She opens her mouth to say more, but it leaves her in a squeak and a moan when Orange seizes White by the hair and wrenches her from her throne.

With a heavy huff, Orange forces herself into the too-small throne, causing a series of cracks and groans from the rock, and drops White across her corded thighs, leaving her to struggle, embarrassed, with a slate-grey blush across her cheekbones and a wide-eyed look of shock, in the cage of Orange’s arms.

“How – how dare-“ She bristles with fury when Orange covers her mouth with one hand, already tired of her pointless squawking.

“I’m stronger than you are,” Orange reminds her, “And I’ve heard plenty enough of your bullshit already.”


	48. Opalised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink Diamond emerged with opal inclusions.

Pink is stretched out in the moonlight, the threads of iridescent banding on her pastel skin shimmering muted silvers and splintered blues. White wants to trace them, touch them, but Pink is asleep, her chest rising and falling peacefully with unnecessary breaths, ripe and rich and swollen with luxury, mottled with the occasional silvery-pinkish bruise from White’s overeager mouth. She curses herself for leaving marks, and doesn’t dare disturb her. The moment feels as fragile as stretched out yarn held over a knife.  
She is so beautiful. Each breath causes a dizzying whirl across the opalescent patches, like the paint on a well-exercised horse, flanks damp with sweat and concealing muscle underneath softness. Pink is defective, White knows that, but she looks down at her own skin in the moonlight – stark, uncomfortable, bloodless like dead flesh, and compares it to the pencil dawn over Pink’s ribcage, the shimmer of sunset over lakewater wandering over her right thigh. She’s not really a Diamond, either, she’s something different – unique.   
All of them are so different, White thinks, all of them are so different and yet if Pink is beautiful, so beautiful it feels like White could crack, it scarcely seems to matter if Yellow’s strong shoulders, curving in the dusk and shuddering with restrained strength, come with star-splashes of navy, or if Blue’s careful kisses conceal a strip of sunshine along the roof of her mouth.  
Pink grumbles in her sleep and kicks idly like a dog chasing a rabbit in her dreams, the smallest frown of distress on her face enough to make White immediately repent her selfishness. She drops back from her elbow and wraps her arms around Pink, kissing the nape of her neck until the fearful frown vanishes.  
The moment is gone, but the feelings will remain forever.


	49. afterwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a visit from Orange, White, Yellow and Pink relax.

White stirred at the feeling of a hand running through her hair, soft and rhythmically teasing the sweaty tangles out until the blunt fingers could brush against her scalp with no impediment but the whisper of her hair. She felt solid warmth on both sides of her, and unthinkingly pressed against the one behind her, noticeably running hotter than the soft Pink nestled under her chin, head on her shoulder, the faint fragrance of strawberries almost perceptible among the heavier muskier smells of sweat and sex, and the peculiar pumice-reek Orange left behind. She winced. The small movement had transformed her body into a symphony of aches.

“Are you all right?” Yellow asked her, her voice as quiet a rumble as she could make it, her hand pausing in White’s hair.

White mumbled a sound. She stretched a little, trying to pull out the pains without disturbing Pink as best as she could. Pink snuffled in her dreams, but remained quiescent. Then White sighed, and her body relaxed, long and slow and languorous. Her body felt sore and used, but pleasantly exhausted, a dull warmth buzzing in her bones at the kindness of Yellow’s attention and Pink’s presence.

It had been a good night. White had known Orange was coming for weeks – it was always visible with Yellow and Pink, little flirtations, dance steps, a courting ritual lasting only half as long as it would take White to reach synchrony with a gem. They were reckless though, and so was their fusion. White had heard her before she’d seen her, bellowing White’s name like a game of who-can-shout-the-loudest as she thundered down the halls. White had played chase for a bit, leading Orange in a circuit loop towards her rooms, but the bigger fusion overtook her before she could reach them and swept her up.  It was exhilarating to be so desired that Orange would chase her to try and catch her.

“White,” pressed Yellow, insistently. “Please tell me how you’re feeling. I – I think a lot of this is going to bruise.” She swallowed. “Is already bruising.”

White still felt like she was floating, her head stuffed with clouds. She pondered speaking so that she could tell Yellow that carrying the bruises they’d given her in passion were the absolute opposite of a problem, but her throat ached and her voice would be at a rasp of what it normally was. White had pride enough to not want Yellow’s impression of her famously mellifluous voice to be replaced by that of a croaky frog who’d sung opera all night. Or something like it.

She wanted Yellow to stroke her hair again, so she nudged at her hand with her head, like Pink would have done. She heard Yellow huff a disbelieving sigh and then her hand patiently returned to fussing with White’s hair. White dozed contentedly, not quite asleep, not quite awake, drawing circles on Pink’s hip with her finger. Her skin felt smooth and warm under White’s hand, like heated silk laid over embers.

“Why do you let us do this to you?” asked Yellow quietly, something like wonder in her voice, when she thought White was asleep.

White’s breath stuttered in a little laugh. Orange was focused enough to figure out anew every time she caught White that Yellow and Pink apart were too blind to see. All they needed now was Blue to curl up at Yellow’s back, her long hair tickling Yellow’s spine, and it would feel complete.


	50. Cough Syrup, Melanie Martinez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Young White Diamond and Brown Diamond. Warning for addiction.

“I need it,” White is whispering feverishly, “I need it. Brown. I-“ She’s pulled herself into a tight ball in the corner of the room, her mace gripped tight in one hand, her pale, glittering eyes peering out of the gap under her shaggy hair.

Brown Diamond’s hands curl into regretful fists, a tortured expression crossing her face. “You don’t, you – you have to stop this. I-“

She grabs at her face with her hands, caressing the withered skin of half her skull, her patchy hair. Her uneven fingers sink into her hair, and she stares at White out of the gap they make. At the ruin of her promising little singer. Brown remembers finding White, so young she still had a streak of emergence dirt on her cheek, wandering around the clifftops, singing so the stars would come down. That soft, radiant creature is gone now, replaced by this irritable mess, chewing on the handle of her weapon, shivering anxiously as if with unendurable cold, and Brown is the one who made her that way. Brown hasn’t heard her sing in months.

“You tried to kill Ally, White. Do you remember?”

White hunches closer in on herself and moans into the mace’s handle.

“I asked you a _question,”_ Brown snaps, and the words stumble out of White slowly and reluctantly.

“I remember you put your hands on me and made me calm. You – took it all away,” White says sulkily.

Brown sighs and extends her hand, turning her face away so that she at least doesn’t have to look. There is a pause, and then the mace clangs aside and White scurries across the room, instantly pushing her cheek worshipfully into Brown’s hand. Brown closes her eyes, concentrates on projecting a feeling of calm and peace. She feels more than sees White sag down against her leg with an exhausted sigh.

“Why did you do it?” Brown asks tightly, guilt warring with anger, winning. “I – thought you were getting _better.”_

“She told me that she wanted to kill you,” White answers in a slow, syrupy voice, dazed and dreamlike. “I… that’s bad…”

“This is the last time I’m doing this for you,” Brown tells her savagely, and knows she is lying the moment White wraps her arms around her leg and hums a little tune under her breath.


	51. Two pina coladas, Garth Brooks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Pink Diamond faked her own death.

Pink sits on a beach, skipping stones. She is cross-legged, and there is wet sand on her knees, back slumped and posture sloppy. There is no one here to tell her off for her unbrushed hair, her ragged nails, her bloodshot eyes and worn, torn clothing. The sea foams over the beach sand in an eternal dance, unbothered by such mortal concerns. There is no one here to give her work, there is no one here to ask her why there are dried tear tracks on her face, there is no one here to push her into getting up and carrying on one last time. There is no one here to care about the shape and cut of the gem on her stomach. There is no one here to comment on how she can’t even skip stones properly, they fall with uneven thuds and deep _splooshes,_ startling yellow fish in the clear water.

There is no one here but Pink.

Her shoulders unwind, and she breathes out for the first time in centuries. Beholden to no one but herself, Pink finds freedom in solitude.


	52. This Kiss, Faith Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. White/Pink.

“Do we have to go inside?” Pink is asking against White’s collarbone as they are getting their breath back, a lazy lapful of sunwarmed flesh, half-exposed in the spaghetti strap tank-tops she likes to wear, the boy-shorts and thighs hooked around White’s hips. White’s head is tilted up to the sunshine, her head buzzing from champagne and too much attention from Pink’s talented tongue on long Sunday afternoons, a stretch of well-oiled and lugubrious time dropped in their laps.

“We’ll burn,” White reminds her, hearing her voice shake with breathlessness.

“Maybe we will,” Pink says lazily, with the sort of flippant nonchalance that White perfectly expects from her. Her lips are soft and tempting, her lipstick smeared on White’s cheeks, halfway down her neck like a cut. Then they are kissing again, and the possibility of burnt skin no longer seems to matter. They are nothing, and everything, but where their bodies touch, the heat of the sun, the smell of the flowers, the hot stone floor, and the sticky lipstick. It tastes of strawberries.


	53. I will not bow, Breaking Benjamin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Pink vs Cyan.

They are having dinner, a civilised break in the warfare. Cyan eats with the same neat precision that she kills with. Her control is utter and precise, and her eyes are still and liquid, like mirrors. Pink gorges messily opposite her, luxuriant and unapologetic. It is a tamer battle than fists and teeth, but Pink can feel the chain-links of Cyan’s slippery ice against her skin.

“I am trying to help you,” Cyan murmurs. “I only want to make you better.”

Outside, Pink’s people are breaking. Cyan’s thirst cannot be sated by their obedience, only their destruction. Between them, like an island, Yellow’s gem is covered in blood and filth, Yellow’s own tears of pleading. They are having a debate in silence. Yellow has broken, it is up to Pink to survive.

“Save your breath,” Pink says, smiling sweet, “You’ll need it to sing for me later.”

Cyan smiles thinly and inclines her head behind a wine glass. “It would be my pleasure.”

Her tongue wriggles out and slurps the wine from the cup, vanishes back into the black hole in her long, pallid face, and a horrific bolt of nausea sinks icy claws into Pink’s belly and revolts at the food she has just eaten. In response, Pink picks her teeth with her nails, belches, then slumps back into her chair, legs spread and hands lightly resting on her thighs.

“I’m sure it will,” Pink leers, and watches with satisfaction as Cyan’s composure flashes with horror, and for a brief, miniscule moment, her form judders as she fights to stay in control. It is a battle of who can stay alive the longest.

She already knows that she is going to win.


	54. Better dig two, the Band Perry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Pink/White. White makes a declaration.

“I love you, Pink,” White tells her, catching her round the waist. Her eyes are the softest grey they ever go, the colours of silvery dawns through fog, elusive and slippery. Pink beams at her and rises unnecessarily on tiptoe to kiss White’s cheeks.

“I love you too!” she announces, winding her arms around her neck and hoping to the stars that White won’t notice the love-bite that Yellow has sucked into a bruise under her ear.

“Pink, I-I…” White’s eyes slide away, a little embarrassed, and there’s a grey blush on her cheeks, but then she musters her courage and sinks to her knees, taking Pink’s hands in her own. Her cape fans around her ankles, the light catches and glimmers on her refractive gem, her devout eyes. “I _love_ you. I’ll love you until I die. I’m yours… and you’re – you’re mine.” She blinks and her eyes turn soft and vulnerable and a little hurt, glossy and sincere. “Aren’t you?”

“Oh, hah, White,” Pink says, deeply uncomfortable and suddenly even more aware of the bruises on her hips and the faint scent of Yellow’s perfume still clinging to her. “I – uhm.”

White drops her hands and kisses Pink’s gem breathlessly, her breath fanning against her skin and making Pink’s stomach jump and tense. Pink startles, winces, tries to shove White’s head away but White pushes into her hands, so that the sharp edge of her gem is against Pink’s palm.

“I mean it,” murmurs White with a sort of feverish sincerity, “I’m yours until my gem turns to dust.”

Pink laughs uneasily. “Come on, White, get up. No one’s going to die anytime soon.”


	55. Last Resort, Papa Roach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Pink Diamond prepares to do something drastic to stop the rebellion.

Thirty eight death threats and four attempts. Failed, some only just. Rebels everywhere, soldiers that she thought she could trust. They might as well all have been traitors. Useless.   
The final straw came when the desecrated flag arrived. All four diamonds, blackened with fire and emblazoned with stars. It wasn’t going to end here. It wouldn’t end with Pink Diamond.  
They were going after White, and Blue, and Yellow. White could defend herself but Blue wouldn’t. Yellow couldn’t. Pink paced and muttered and took a ship to the Moonbase. She brought only Jasper with her. Jasper she could trust. Jasper she had to believe she could trust.  
Her colony looked so small. Some of the gems down there were still loyal. Some weren’t. But Rose Quartz was like a festering weed, choking off Pink Diamond’s authority.  
White had done it once. The only clean way to start again. Wipe them all out, but for one trusted soldier to keep watch over her gem.  
Pink Diamond nodded to Jasper. “Do it.”


	56. Had Enough, Breaking Benjamin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Yellow Zircon uses Blue Zircon.

“You have to win everything, don’t you?” Blue Zircon yelled, her fists clenched, wishing, impotently, that she was brave enough to punch the smug look off of Yellow Zircon’s face. Her little smirk wouldn’t be so infuriating with half the teeth missing. To think, she had kissed those lips. Her stomach revolted at the thought, something squeezing in her chest ached like shame, like humiliation.

“Oh, I do,” Yellow Zircon agreed, “You would too, if you were capable of it.”

She was taking her sweet time putting her clothes back on, buttoning her vest, smoothing her trousers, running her fingers through her sex-mussed hair, tutting when it wouldn’t settle perfectly into two spikes. _Good,_ Blue Zircon thought, irrationally pleased to have ruined _something_ for her.

“I hate you,” Blue Zircon hissed. _You used me,_ she wanted to scream, _you_ lied _to me._

Yellow Zircon raised her head and smirked, her eyes lidding for a moment as she glanced her fellow zircon up and down. “I have no objection to that.” She fiddled with her cravat, humming absently. “Is this straight?” she asked, trying in vain to squint down at it.

“Haven’t you had _enough_ from me?” Blue Zircon demanded, a little despairing.

“Now, there’s no need to be like that,” Yellow Zircon reprimanded patronisingly. “You’re acting like you expected this to mean something.” She patted Blue Zircon’s cheek. “People lie. The faster you learn that, the better a defendant you’ll be.”

Blue Zircon didn’t move aside as Yellow Zircon left, forcing her to sidle around her. She was restraining the urge to lash out violently, and as Yellow Zircon fired her parting shot, she lost it, flinging herself at the closed door and pretending that her roar of anger didn’t conceal tears.

“Who knows,” Yellow Zircon had chuckled, “Maybe you might even _win_ one day.”


	57. soulless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmark AU. Pink dies.

Nothing ever changed with White.  
“I want to see her,” White was begging. “Please, just let me see her.”  
“We can’t,” Yellow said through gritted teeth. “She’s dead, White. You saw her die. You are going to have to-”  
White screamed and flung herself forward, and if it wasn’t for the padded restraints around her arms, she would have knocked right into Yellow. Her black eyes welled up and ran with tears, the slightest dusk of red still hanging about the pupil. This much, Pink had left them, grief and the hole she had left in the car accident that had ripped through their lives. They’d plucked White from the wreckage, still clinging onto Pink, obviously dead with half of her body pulped against the tree the car had crashed into.   
White had been driving. They’d had to tie her down and sedate to bring her into the hospital. Scars remained, dragging over her face, her left arm, deep and healed like the scales of a mad monster.  
“Yellow,” Blue whispered. “You know, she hates to be reminded-”  
“She’s going to have to realise that she killed Pink sooner or later,” Yellow snarled. “Just like she killed all those other-” She broke off. White was weeping, somehow, it still had power to hurt Yellow.  
All of White’s affairs had passed to her soulmates when she had been declared certifiably insane and incapable of making her own decisions, including the details of the witness protection scheme she was under, the story of the ones that had come before.  
“I promised,” White was whispering, interspersing her pleading with French appeals to God, to anyone who would listen. “I promised I’d never hurt anyone again. I promised. Please let me see her, please let me see Pink. I have to know she’s all right.”


	58. Agnes, Glass Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> song prompt, Bellow Diamond

“You’re going to work yourself to death,” Blue whispers, stroking Yellow’s head.

It is dark, Yellow’s head a warm, heavy weight on her lap, her hand holding Blue’s skinny foot like a hand, her eyes lidded. Every so often, Yellow’s thumb sweeps up the arch of Blue’s foot, an absent caress. She is tentatively placing her weight on Blue, all that solid muscle against spindly bone. The heaviest weight is her head in Blue’s lap, the weight of that clever, beloved, genius brain, overworking itself into supernova, no way to switch off. No way but this.

“Even you can’t carry this empire alone.”

The palanquin rocks back and forth like a cradle, Yellow’s chest hot against Blue’s knees. She is impossible like this, lazy melted gold, strands of stiff hair like fields of flaxen wheat parting between Blue’s hands, the smudges of her eyes dark and exhausted. Without an audience, she is free to kneel, letting attention wander, letting tension bleed away.

“I’m not alone right now,” Yellow murmurs back into Blue’s knees.

* * *

“She would have been our age when White gave us our first colony today,” Blue says to her hood, “Do you remember?”

An impatient shuffle from behind her. “Of course I do.”

“White split the planet into two,” Blue whispers. “You were so angry.”

“’Between the two of you, you might just make one useful diamond,’” Yellow mimics White Diamond’s glacial tones in exaggeration, Blue’s lips twitch up in an unseen smile. “And we did, didn’t we…?”

“We fused in a swamp and got stuck for three days.”

“ _Apart_ from that.”

Blue giggles, and then her breath catches and she begins to sob. Yellow comes close, kneels down. Strong arms wind around Blue and bring her back to rest against Yellow’s chest, Yellow’s face hiding in Blue’s hair.

“Stop thinking about her.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“…I know.”


	59. time travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diopside prepares to travel back in time.

There was only one gem that the Authority could absolutely trust in the wake of Pink Diamond’s death. There was only one gem discreet yet authoritative enough to be given a task so monumental. Hopefully, if they succeeded, the Authority which had survived Pink Diamond would die.

“Diopside,” said White Diamond. Her trembling hand, the one least scarred by corruption, was hovering around Diopside’s cheek, not quite daring to touch. Her blind eye was struggling to focus. “My Diopside.”

Diopside’s hand came up and cupped around the space White left between them. “My White Diamond,” she whispered back.

They gravitated towards each other, inexorable, a bond of deep devotion that had stood the test of years and wars, and now would be severed by time, time of all things. Diopside had never wanted more to kiss her Diamond, feel the soft murmur of those enchanting lips against her own as White yielded to her, feel her huge marble body wrapping her legs around Diopside’s hips, urging her on with breathless, half-held notes in sweet descant. But they had an audience, Yellow, looking tightly away the way she always did when Diopside savoured affection from White, Blue, her hand lightly on Yellow’s arm, consoling. The Pearls, Pink Pearl in tears. Nacre and her pet.

“Are you ready?” Blue Diamond was the one who broke in, eventually. “Remember, you have very limited window in which to act.”

Diopside bowed her head to receive the device, which Blue hung around her neck. It was of glinting crystal, a tiny timepiece, yet strong enough to throw her back through time to this very spot on Earth, five thousand years ago, before Pink Diamond had been shattered.

“We only have one chance to make this work,” Yellow Diamond reminded her, sternly.

She was shifting, darting uncomfortable glances up at White, her hands fidgeting at her sides, clearly wanting to extend some sort of parting embrace on Diopside, but fearing White’s reaction. Diopside saved her the trouble, lifting the robotic hand Yellow had built her and running the thumb over Yellow’s cheekbone. The Diamond froze, a deep ochre-gold blush staining her cheeks. Blue Diamond’s hand tightened instinctively on her arm, and Yellow ducked her head to avoid White’s amused eyes.

“Bring her back to us,” White entreated, setting her hand on Diopside’s shoulder and squeezing briefly. “Use any means necessary. And when you find me again…” Her eyes darkened and a little smile played around her lips. “Convince me it’s really you.”

“That an order, my Diamond?” Diopside teased, and White shook her head, her face falling into sombre lines. She staggered slightly as she stepped back, her left leg buckling underneath her, and Yellow caught her by the elbow, supporting her.

Diopside took one last look at them all, Nacre’s old but familiar face, peering determinedly through her wispy hair, Yellow Diamond’s resolute jaw and Blue Diamond’s teary cheeks, and beloved, dear White Diamond, faintly radiant in the sun even with scales pushing their way out of her flesh and a taloned paw hanging from her left arm. Then she swallowed, and dashed the time-bauble against her heart.

Just like that, time unravelled, and Diopside was flung back to the start, to try again.


	60. stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue warns Pink off Yellow.

“You must stop what you are doing to Yellow Diamond,” said chilly Blue Diamond.  
Pink Diamond regarded her playfully from her throne, legs sprawled over the side and haphazardly dangling. Her earthy skin glowed ruddy-warm, and her smile was as bright and wholesome as a cut wheel of fresh cheese. But Blue Diamond had lived too long not to recognise the peculiar scarlet fervour in Pink Diamond’s eyes, nearly the colour of blood, and what that meant. Lust, from a Diamond, had often uncontrollable and heinous consequences. Like madness.  
“What I’m doing to Yellow?” Pink Diamond parroted in a sharp falsetto, “What am I doing to Yellow?”  
Blue Diamond was uncomfortably aware of the outside world around them. The stiff breeze wavered back and forth, tossing eddies and currents in the tall grass. The sound it made was raspy and dry. But underneath the grass was thick dark earth, Pink’s strength, and the only water was that which Blue had brought with her.   
“You know,” said Blue, fixing her with a dark stare. “You did it to White. You broke her.”  
“Broke her?” Pink tittered. “I didn’t. She’s old and senile.”  
“Yes - but she was in command before you came. Yellow has me, and I won’t let you treat her as you did White,” Blue warned her.  
Pink regarded her for a moment, then said, “You wouldn’t stand against me.”  
Blue twisted her robes in her lap. “No,” she said, softly, “You couldn’t stand against me.”


	61. Dancing when the stars go blue, Tim McGraw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt. Blue Zircon teaches Yellow Zircon how to dance.

It was late evening on the third festival of the rotation. Blue gems mingled in a great hall of tinted glass and robelike shadows, the ceiling sweeping up towards an observation dome where the stars glinted down like gem shards, icy and remote, the entirety of their empire swept out above in black. Singing and music drifted up from the bustle, which moved with the intricate, purposeful circling of a dance, perhaps a stately waltz. This was only one sector of the aristocratic Blue Court, but it was one of Blue Zircon’s favourites. The zircon quarters bordered the Hall of Seaglass, and Blue Zircon knew the intricate, scalloped walkways that climbed ever higher around the dome of frothy stone and thin glass as well as she knew the court she was made for.

“I’m not sure what the purpose of inviting me here was,” Yellow Zircon remarked snidely. “Contrary to popular belief, the Yellow Court also celebrates these festivals.”

“You veer close to falsehood,” Blue Zircon replied, feeling almost confident in her home territory. “The Yellow Court understands nothing of things like entertainment… fun… or festivals.”

Yellow Zircon glanced quickly at her out of the corner of her eye, an irritated quirk pulling down her mouth. Blue Zircon gripped the stone banister and tried not to sweat too visibly. Yellow Zircon’s nostrils flared and she dropped her eyes down to the assembled blue gems, waving a dismissive hand.

“What is the point of these synchronised, repetitive movements?” Yellow Zircon demanded. “Why are there so many? Celebrations should be taken in shifts so that we may continue to glory the empire and our Diamonds. The _Yellow Court_ understands what must be done to support the frivolity of the Blue Court.”

“Do you mean the _dancing?”_ Blue Zircon asked, surprised. “I object to your misrepresentative statement – the workers of the Blue Court sacrifice their rest breaks ahead of time to afford one night off.”

“Then they overwork themselves and are of shoddy quality,” Yellow Zircon rebutted, “Is that what that waste of energy is called? It would be better used serving their Diamond. Look at that amethyst, putting its paws all over that aquamarine. Such engagements _clearly_ offer nothing but sentimental distractions from the honour of service. Though,” she sniffed, superiority oozing from every word, “admittedly, it is not such a distinguished service as that dedicated to the purity and efficiency of Yellow Diamond.”

 _“You don’t know what_ _dancing is?”_ Blue Zircon found herself gaping at Yellow Zircon.

“Senseless repetition weakens an argument,” Yellow Zircon snapped defensively. “I am a Zircon, I do not need to know about… dancing. If it has never come up in my service before, it is unnecessary for me to know it.”

“But you’re a gem,” Blue Zircon insisted.

“Yellow Diamond does not tolerate petty distractions like this.”

“Why does Yellow Diamond not allow her gems access to music and dance? There must be a reason that she does not and Blue Diamond does.” Warming to her theme, Blue Zircon carried on, her gestures becoming increasingly wilder. Yellow Zircon ducked with a plainly bored expression as Blue Zircon’s hand swooped dangerously close to her face. “The efficiency of the Blue Court is not harmed by the prevalence of music. “’Song is the pleasure of gemkind’” – Moonstone 3K7H3XZ. Yellow gems are clearly capable of experiencing pleasure from music – exhibit A, you’ve been tapping your foot this entire time – unless the most important yellow gem cannot… Yellow Diamond must be deaf!”

Triumphantly, Blue Zircon threw her arms wide at the stars with her champion statement, basking in the glow of her conclusion.

“You’re cracked,” Yellow Zircon stated, unimpressed, though she guiltily stopped the erring foot. “My radiant Diamond simply only allows us to perform that which we are made for and thus naturally suited to in order to create maximum efficiency. Deviation is unnecessary.”

“That _is_ a perjurious statement!” Blue Zircon turned to her with a brilliant grin, caught up in her theory. “And a false assumption! You are a gem – you are made to experience music and have an aptitude for dance, and I can prove it if you do it with me right now!”

An awkward silence fell, and Blue Zircon’s expression froze, steadily becoming a sweatier and wilder grin of horrible discomfort. She had never wished more heartily for a black hole open up and swallow her miserable gem more than that moment. Yellow Zircon cocked an eyebrow, the faintest smirk twitching at her lips as she stared down across the gathered blue gems below, and touched her collar, the froth of lace just above her gem. The _“Hmm hmm”_ of slimy amusement that came out of her then was so laden with self-approving and puffed-up smugness that Blue Zircon automatically felt her eye twitch and a sudden desire to break Yellow Zircon’s nose that she only fought off with dint of much practice.

Eventually, Yellow Zircon said, “I object to your usage of perjury when I have taken no oath.”

Blue Zircon threw her hands up and was about to refute her statement when Yellow Zircon turned, quickly, and plucked the monocle from Blue Zircon’s eye, dropping it into Blue Zircon’s back pocket. Frozen in place, Blue Zircon became very aware of the flush burning steadily up her cheeks and the bead of sweat she acutely hoped Yellow Zircon hadn’t noticed about to drip off the end of her nose.

“I should, however,” Yellow Zircon added, as satisfied as a fat-bellied cat, “enjoy experiencing the – how _did_ you put it? – ah yes, the _pleasure_ of gemkind.”

Blue Zircon spluttered, inhaled awkwardly as she was about to object, and devolved into a coughing fit. Yellow Zircon waited, arms crossed and a smile on her face that only grew bigger every time Blue Zircon failed to regain her composure.

“I retract my statement,” Blue Zircon finally managed to wheeze, “The only thing dancing with you would prove is that I would have the patience of a Diamond!”

“ _Hmm hmm._ And I always thought it was rude to excite a gem and then abandon her.”

“You’ll survive, there’s plenty of song-drunk gems down there dazed enough to dance with you.”

“So now you advocate that I exhaust my first time on a drunken stranger?” Yellow Zircon covered her mouth in mock-shock. “ _Zircon._ How quartzine of you. Don’t you want to prove your hypothesis? To see if I am …capable?”

“Prosecution is not allowed leading questions!”

“In court. You would know if I was prosecuting you. Are you playing witness or defence?”

“Are we in court or not?” Blue Zircon drew herself up, rather enjoying the argument, despite its humiliating subject matter.

“Whichever will make you feel more comfortable.” Yellow Zircon feigned tender confusion. “Are performance issues common or is it just you?”

“I don’t have an issue with _performance_.”

“Prove it,” Yellow Zircon dared.

“You’re good,” Blue Zircon conceded unwillingly, argued into a corner with no way out.

“I know,” Yellow Zircon said airily.

Blue Zircon sighed, and hastily wiped her hands on her trousers to extend one to Yellow Zircon, who took it after a moment’s pause to look down at the dancing blue gems below. It almost looked nervous. For some reason, the indication that Yellow Zircon might have been in the slightest way out of her depth steadied Blue Zircon as she realised that for once, she had the total upper hand.

“Put your hand on my shoulder,” Blue Zircon instructed, “We’re starting simple.”

Yellow Zircon did as she was told without any questioning, the light of the stars catching and turning the pane of her monocle into a flat silvery-gold mirror in which Blue Zircon saw her own perspiring and uncomfortable visage. She averted her eyes and placed her own hand on Yellow Zircon’s side, the bulky vest she wore not entirely hiding Yellow Zircon’s unsteady intake of breath.

“It’s all right,” Blue Zircon said uselessly, “You’ll be good at this.”

They stepped backwards and forwards in a repetitive pattern, Blue Zircon leading with slight pressures on Yellow Zircon’s hand indicating which way she wanted to go. The waltz was deliberately easy, the shuffle of their shoes and the distant wax and wane and shudder of the music and the celebrations the only sounds. As Blue Zircon had predicted, Yellow Zircon caught on extremely quickly, the awkwardness of her steps smoothing into confidence, enough for her back to straighten and chin to tilt up in pride.

“You’ve got it,” Blue Zircon said, grinning with a hint of her own smugness. “Hypothesis proved.”

“I think not,” Yellow Zircon rejoined, her eyes bright, “This is so simple anyone could do it.”

“Well, let me make it harder for you then,” Blue Zircon blustered, determined to catch Yellow Zircon off guard and make that impeccable veneer of smugness crack.

 _“Please_ do.”

Shocked, Blue Zircon missed a step at the innuendo in Yellow Zircon’s voice and hurriedly turned it into a dip. Yellow Zircon smirked up at her, unrepentant. Blue Zircon huffed and spun her, flinging Yellow Zircon out along her arm. Unfazed, Yellow Zircon turned herself back into the dance’s embrace, even uttering a little laugh.

After that, Blue Zircon lost all but the illusion of control over the dance’s direction. Yellow Zircon was fiercely competitive, and Blue Zircon argued with her back and forth across the square of the balcony, a complicated quickstep that made their shoes tap and click pleasingly on the stone. Then they were joining hands again, and Yellow Zircon was whirling then dipping Blue Zircon, grinning widely with her chin backlit.

“I concede your point,” Yellow Zircon said, her hands supporting Blue Zircon in a low dip. “I am certainly capable of this.”

Blue Zircon cleared her throat awkwardly, lightly pushing at Yellow Zircon until, confused, Yellow Zircon dropped her hands and let her step back. Flustered and refusing to look at Yellow Zircon, Blue Zircon gestured in an embarrassed sort of way and murmured, “Your – your gem.”

Surprised, Yellow Zircon looked down at herself. Much to her embarrassed horror, the gem set in her chest was blazing bright white with readiness as if she were an eager topaz. Immediately, she clapped her hands over the offending glow, as if it was possible to push it back inside the stone. A dreadful humiliation wiped the smug grin from her face.

“I – did not intend…” Yellow Zircon trailed off and poked at her gem. It was still glowing hopefully.

“It’s all right,” said Blue Zircon with an attempt at cheeriness, “It’s apparently quite normal when you’re first starting out! Some gems never quite learn to control it!”

“I apologise,” Yellow Zircon said stiffly. “I must’ve got carried away.”

“It’s actually a little flattering,” Blue Zircon said to the stars, still keeping her back politely turned. “I’ve never had anyone light up for _me_ before.”

Yellow Zircon tentatively opened her cupped hands and thought of the most disjointed thoughts she possibly could. Being cracked, shattered, dishonoured and dismissed. Eventually, the sad little glow petered out. Yellow Zircon exhaled in relief.

“I would appreciate it if you kept this to yourself,” Yellow Zircon said formally, trying to desperately regain her composure. Blue Zircon dipped her head in agreement.

“No one would believe that I got a lightshow from _you_ anyway,” Blue Zircon said, with barely supressed humour in her voice.

“You said it goes away with practice?” Yellow Zircon asked carefully. There was no way that she wanted to have this happen every time she danced – and well, Blue Zircon had been right, she had enjoyed herself immensely.

Blue Zircon shrugged one shoulder with a wince. “Sometimes.”

“I suppose you will be teaching me to dance then,” Yellow Zircon asserted smoothly, and it was almost worth it for the choked, strangled sound Blue Zircon made as she promptly forgot how to breathe.


	62. DREAMER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 62 - Dreamer, a prehistoric jade from the Diamond Wars, awakens early from a bad prophetic dream.

Dreamer woke up sweating. The dream faded almost instantly, but the vaguely prophetic feeling remained. Itchy. Like an ill-fitting robe, or handling someone else’s weapon.

The dusty length of the pillar she was resting against poked straight and still into the sky, like an accusing finger, and clouds of dust moved in wan, listless patterns and scuffles around the pillar base. It was noon, from the position of the sun, and everyone else would be asleep, or indulging somewhere cool and shady. If she craned her head, she could see the low longhouse that the diamonds shared. It was their shady meeting place, usually wreathed in pleasure-smokes and ringing with the snarls and brawls of battling diamonds, competing for lust and power. Now, it was silent.

_Silver._

Her mouth felt dusty and dry, and her head pounded. Nevertheless, squinting against the dry glare, Dreamer made a valiant attempt to stagger to her feet, catching onto the pillar as the itchy feeling of the prophetic dream returned tenfold.

Something was wrong. Or was going to be wrong. Soon, and badly.

 _Silver. I need Silver._ Where the bloody shards was she when Dreamer needed her?

Shade. Silver would be in the shade, knees tucked up to her chest, long hair fanning out from her head like a dandelion puff, its own weight pulling it into a semblance of  _down,_ a far cry from Dreamer’s own tight, scraped back queue of green hair. She was a jade, Silver was a diamond. Some folk these days were saying that was enough to expect Silver to be prettier – and better – than her.

Dreamer, with effort, pushed down the violent quiverings of unease. The diamonds were always circling at each other, pouncing and worrying at each other’s necks, trying to whisper dominance over themselves. There were far too many of them packed in close, and no wars to fight since the last of the Pearl hive-mothers, nacres, whatever they damn called themselves, had been ground into dust and then locked shut in boxes to stop them from building themselves back together in that queer, half-organic way of theirs. Well, all but one. Tunes’ hive-mother. But Brown Diamond had said not to touch Tunes’ pet, so Dreamer just gladly stayed out of its way. Creepy thing. Dreamer didn’t trust anybody who’d turn on their own kind like that.

_Shards take her, where’s Silver?_

Dreamer really didn’t want to go into the smoky longhouse. The closer she got, the more evident it became that it wasn’t deserted – at least two diamonds were in there, from the rhythmic rattling of the tables and soft cries. The wind moaned and brushed sticky fingers of heat into the smoky doorways. The other diamonds had picked suitably shady spots outside where the breeze could ruffle the sweat from their brows. Dreamer waved at Merry, whose enormous, fused bulk could not fit as easily under the shaded eaves of the longhouse, but who managed a smile for her even in the heat. Tunes was curled up blankly on Merry’s stomach, her body laying limply between Merry’s legs, fanning soft gusts of wind over Merry’s sweaty pink face with total concentration. Merry grimaced at Dreamer, who winced sympathetically back. Tunes had evidently spent the night with the browns again if the sluggish, dazed quality of her movements was any indication.

 _Stupid fool,_ Dreamer thought privately, then felt a little guilty. Silver liked Tunes, even if the fact that Tunes could sing and she couldn’t upset her.

She’d hurried on again before she thought that it might have been a good idea to ask Merry where Silver was. The itchy feeling of prophecy was back, and Dreamer gritted her teeth as her headache redoubled, beckoning her into the blissful abyss of sleep. Silver first. Dreamer pushed thoughts of rest aside.

She found her, eventually, curled up in a quiet corner with her knees pulled tight, just as Dreamer had expected. The sudden crash of relief that furled over her then made Dreamer wobble where she stood, and she would have fallen if Silver had not looked up, noticed her, and then a stabilising buffet of wind struck Dreamer.

“Thanks,” Dreamer said weakly, and limped greedily towards Silver.

Aptly named, Silver’s skin was the colour of pewter, darker now that she blushed. Her eyes were serious and a little sad, and crazy, long tufts of hair shot up from her head like a wavy mane of pampas grass, occasionally sticking to the wall or her clothes. She wore a soft, loose robe, and when Dreamer slid into her lap and clung to her, she could feel the shape of Silver’s body underneath the thin manifested fabric.

“Silver,” said Dreamer, and kissed Silver’s gem, which happened to be right where her mouth should have been. The surface was always cool, deeply welcome in the heat. “Itchy dream.”

Silver’s eyes creased with sympathy, and she soothed Dreamer against her shoulder, being bigger enough that it felt like her whole body could enwrap the short, stout little jade in an embrace. The gem at her mouth flickered with light, projecting a quick rough version of picture-speak that Dreamer knew as well as she knew anything.

“A bad one,” she answered. “I don’t know what – but, something’s happening,” she said, frustrated.

Silver comforted her with caresses and cuddles, occasionally bumping the hard surface of her gem against Dreamer’s cheek in her version of a kiss. Dreamer didn’t say anything, even though each bump invariably hit her sore temple.

Dreamer had the ability to sense the future through dreams. None of the other jades she knew had it, but then again, there only was two others. Not many gems weaker than the battle-lusty diamonds had survived the wars. Twice now when she laid down to sleep she’d got the itchy dreams – the burning, restless, “change is coming, step aside or be run down” dreams that offered her nothing more sensible than a terrible foreboding.

Something was coming, Dreamer knew. But, as she lay embraced in Silver’s arms, the diamonds of Homeworld scattered around her like freshly picked daisies, she had no idea of just  _what._


	63. Sleepsong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 63 - The fusion of Pink and Blue seeks a lullaby from White Diamond.

Purple sauntered into White’s throne room like she owned it, as if nothing was more natural than for her to be there, glossy lavender hair rippling down over her shoulders, lilac chased through with indigo and gleaming with health in the stark white light. Her teeth were very white in her slow smile, and she brushed past White’s court as if the aristocrats were nothing but dolls, each one as pale  as her teeth, as black as her nails, shades of grey in between. 

As a rule, White Diamond’s gems were monochrome. A murmur swept through her gems, hushed gasps of scandalised horror.

“Pink,” White said, instinctively tensing forward, preparing for a fight, “Blue. You fused. Why?”

Purple tossed her head. “Matters?”

“Leave us,” said White quickly. She leant back in her throne, resting one hand indolently on the arm, trying with all her might to look undisturbed. In truth, her heart was pounding and a sick fear was already growing just underneath it. 

Purple had never attacked White, but fusions were in themselves a declaration of war, and White hadn’t foreseen her arrival. Usually, Diamond fusions were intimately obvious to all those around them - courting another equally busy Diamond into receptivity took a long time. 

Purple prowled up to White, uncaring of the gems scuttling to get out of her way. White began to feel that remaining sitting was a mistake as Purple towered over her, two of her hands planting themselves on the arms of White’s chair, the other two remaining crossed over her plentiful chest, pushing her breasts up flatteringly. She almost seemed to spill out of the split diamond shape of her dress. The purple diamonds at her navel and breastbone glittered invitingly. White swallowed and leaned back even further, trying her hardest to look unbothered. 

“Know you want to look,” Purple said. “Know you like them. Go on.”

“What are you doing?” White demanded, looking up into Purple’s sly glittering eyes. 

Purple uncrossed her hands and leaned forward an increment more, idly kneading White’s knees. Her demeanour was playful and unconcerned - the sensual tease had been only a little joke to her, and probably not one that she understood the full effect of. White’s blood was racing through her veins and her hands were wet with sweat. She was teetering between hope and suspicion. 

Purple only ever humiliated White. White knew Purple saw her as a joke, inferior to her subordinate Yellow Diamond in every way, and it rankled so poisonously that White had never been brave enough to address the mockery and pinch it off at the root. And now Purple was here, unexplained and uninvited… and joking with her. White’s mind struggled to grasp the concept.

“Want something,” said Purple. “Sing.”

“You want me to sing?” White repeated, baffled.Purple nodded jerkily, her eyes glittering. 

“For me. Just for me. Sing.”

“Oh,” said White. “You - want a -” She trailed off and felt her cheeks flush blue-grey. Purple wanted a private concert, as if White was a pearl to be ordered to perform. White had sung for Pink a few times, but only once or twice on request, and it had always ended in - well, White being involved in activities that were not singing. 

White highly doubted that any fusion containing Blue Diamond would ever want that with her.

“Yesssss,” Purple purred. She slid into White’s lap, her prickly claws almost hurting like pinpricks as she kneaded at White, resting her head on White’s shoulder and peering up with woefully glittering eyes. “Can’t sleep.”

A sudden gush of relief overwhelmed her, and White was moved to stroke Purple’s shimmering hair consolingly before she could quite stop herself. The moment her hand touched the silky strands, she froze, but after a brief wince and a little snort, Purple appeared to accept the caress. Nevertheless, White moved slowly. She felt very aware of the nearly claws pricking her.

Purple only wanted a lullaby to get to sleep. White had done this for Pink so many times it seemed natural even now. Pink was so excitable, she struggled to rest. The soporific effects of the gentle lullaby were sorely needed to calm her. White had only misunderstood, misconstrued the directionless flirtatiousness as much a part of Purple as White’s careful orderliness was of herself to mean that Purple had wanted something wildly uncharacteristic.

In White’s defence, Purple was difficult to fathom. She revealed little of what she was thinking but plenty of what she felt, was sly and unpredictable, and spoke in disjointed sentences. She didn’t seem to care about the things that Blue and Pink did, and never did more than she had to. She was the quintessence of lazy indulgence, moody and mercurial. But she was half Pink, so White was forced, in a helpless sort of way, to love her. 

Suddenly, White wondered if maybe that had been Blue and Pink’s whole intention. White, after all, was unlikely to agree to soothing Blue, though she did wonder what Blue dreamt that was so awful to lead her to this roundabout way of easing her exhaustion. 

“All right,” White said. 

Awkwardly, she settled her hands on the arms of the chair, wishing she was brave enough to see if Purple would accept an embrace, but knowing she was wiser not to push her luck. Purple’s muscles were already carefully tensed.

White inhaled, slowly, taking a moment to reorder herself. It wasn’t the best position for singing, but the room was empty and Purple wouldn’t care. White forced herself to push aside her worries and concentrate on the soft, harmonising song coming from Purple’s gems. She closed her eyes and started with a low note, moving quickly up the scale and down again, a quick preparation more to hide her nervousness than anything else. Purple waited impatiently, claws prickling.

White started to sing. Her song was mostly wordless, relying instead on the dim, strengthening song from Purple’s gems to guide her. The sound of her voice vibrated through to the walls, making the glass chandelier sigh. Purple’s gems flickered and glowed steadily. She ducked her head against White’s chest. As White continued, she shuffled into a more comfortable position and yawned, catlike.

White sang, her chest trembling with the effort, losing herself in the pleasure of creating music. Her own gem began to shine, and White, barely conscious, tightened her control over her physical form, restraining fusion.

Purple sprawled over her lap, breathing deeply. One of her hands had curled childishly around White’s forefinger, another tucked under Purple’s chin. Her eyes still wandered uneasily under her lids, so White kept going, softening and deepening the lullaby to a gentle, repetitive croon. And Purple slept. 


	64. unshattered 3

Word of White Diamond’s disappearance at the hands of the Renegade Pearl spread like ripples through Homeworld.

Fearful mutterings abounded as yet another Diamond deserted her gems for the siren lure of Earth. White had not been seen in public for many years, and most young gems were barely aware of her presence. But in this time of upheaval, there were still loyalists of an age before Yellow and Blue had emerged, an age where White Diamond ruled unbroken, alone, the ultimate empress, who ardently refused to abandon their paragon to Earth’s tender mercies – rather regardless, Yellow thought savagely, of whether the senile, half-cracked pebble had agreed to go, as the Gem Republic of Earth, legitimised by White’s own hand in the Treaty of the Moonbase, was claiming.

Diopside, White Diamond’s most beloved and fearsome general since the day they had emerged together from the same cliff face in war-torn prehistoric Homeworld, was one such loyalist.

Yellow Diamond grappled with Diopside across the floor of her throne room. It was empty, gems having scurried in terror long before the first blow had landed. Some of the screens still flickered, others had been smashed in by heavy bodies colliding with fragile panels. Diopside had thrown her bodily into the lighting strips, and so they heaved against each other in blaring semidarkness, frightened alarms screeching, some light strips still valiantly guttering candle flames sunk deep.

Yellow’s arms wrapped around Diopside’s burly shoulders, pressing them as close as she could to minimise Diopside’s powerful, one-fisted hits that invariably broke bones with every strike. Diopside struggled, snarling angrily like a wild beast in Yellow’s ear. Her mechanical hand buzzed with electricity, and she clutched hold of Yellow’s dislocated right shoulder, sending a juddering charge down her nerves as bone grated unpleasantly in its socket. Yellow cried out, form flickering in her distress.

Diopside faltered just slightly at the sound, and Yellow Diamond took immediate advantage. She kneed Diopside in the gut and rolled them over, using her height advantage to pin Diopside against the floor, her thighs squeezing Diopside’s hips as Diopside bucked like an unbroken horse under her. The old soldier’s white-lined dark green face was twisted with fury, and Yellow had to use all of her strength to pin down her natural arm, her other fumbling at the casing of the metal arm.

If it had been any other gem, the metal arm would have refused access, but the superior gemtech recognised the touch of its maker and came loose with a peaceful rattle, baring Diopside’s white-diamond-flecked dark green gem sunken into her armless shoulder. Yellow gripped the gem, and Diopside froze.

Panting, the two of them halted their furious battle. Yellow’s head was bowed, sweat sticking her hair to her forehead damply, and a stray lock of white hair had fallen across Diopside’s scarred cheek. Her whole body ached. Her shoulder was white fire. The old soldier was breathing heavily in quick bursts, and the muscles in her natural arm held down by Yellow’s weight flexed constantly, on the look-out for weakness. Her hips shifted under Yellow, who gritted her teeth and bore down harder. She was bigger than Diopside, but Diopside had the advantage of experience, had fought for White Diamond against hostile diamond-clans at the emergence of old Homeworld, served her loyally for thousands of years before Yellow, a modern diamond who ruled by right instead of conquest, had even been conceptualised.

“Enough,” growled Yellow Diamond, tired and frustrated. She knew that she could not hope to win, if Diopside should decide to attack in earnest, to kill. “Enough… of this.”

She released Diopside’s gem and hand. Diopside remained as she had been forced, her free hand curling into a fist, but she did not strike. Yellow’s hands dropped, automatically, to Diopside’s barrel chest, feeling the heat of the muscles under the skin. Diopside’s hips shifted under her again, and seemingly without her own knowledge, her hand found its way to Yellow Diamond’s thigh. Diopside’s rough hand caressed the hard muscle tensed there, the same way she did when Yellow rode her, their bodies slipping together in sweaty desperation. Yellow swallowed. Diopside’s eyes darkened.

For a moment, they gazed at each other, and Yellow began to hope that she could distract Diopside from her foolish plan. The old soldier was lusty to a fault; her incredible sexual appetite had been half the reason Yellow Diamond had managed to lure her into her service while White Diamond had been locked away, corrupted and rotting, in her old palace for the past four thousand or so years. Diopside had been content, serving her. Not happy, Yellow recognised that the foremost part of her heart was devoted to White Diamond forever, but content. Yellow had treated her kindly and bore with the long, painful adjustment period that followed in the power vacuum of White Diamond’s death patiently. She had favoured Diopside in accordance with her high rank under White and invited her into both Yellow’s confidence and her bed.

And yet, this was how Diopside chose to repay her. It was quickly becoming just one in a long line of many betrayals caused by Earth and its new gem republic. Homeworld was losing all loyalty to the Authority. And now, the Renegade Pearl had kidnapped White Diamond from her prison, and the hornet’s nest had been kicked. They could ignore one, maybe two, a few gems here and there, losing Pink’s old human zoo, but a  _Diamond_ was a different matter. They had already perverted Pink.

“I must go to White,” Diopside insisted lowly, nevertheless. “You cannot stop me from going to her.”

“Can’t I?” Yellow demanded. “You’re in my service, not White Diamond’s.”

Diopside hesitated, and then her eyes dropped. “I will always be White Diamond’s gem.”

Hurt, Yellow fisted her hands in the front of Diopside’s uniform, where a proud yellow diamond replaced her old white one. “This disagrees,” she hissed. “You’re under my authority and I will be forced to punish you if you defy me.”

“Then shatter me, because if you don’t nothing will stop me going to Earth and finding my Diamond!” Diopside bellowed, and her hand came up so quickly that Yellow didn’t even have a chance to widen her eyes before Diopside summoned her katar and shoved the spike directly through Yellow’s throat.

Blood pulsed from the wound, and Yellow gagged, floundering. Her hands convulsively came up to grip the spike lodged in her throat, and her golden eyes found Diopside, horrified and agonised. Diopside bared her teeth and grunted, shoving her fist through the hole the spike had made, tearing through muscle and bone as if it were nothing but paper and clawing up towards Yellow’s brain. Yellow struck out wildly, gurgling screams as Diopside seized handfuls of Yellow’s brain and yanked it out of her throat.

Only when Yellow’s body collapsed, a sizeable part of her skull collapsed, her golden eyes accusing but helpless, did Diopside stop. Incapable of poofing, Yellow was forced to lie there in an unresponsive body that quickly began to shut down. The last thing she saw as her eyes closed was her own golden blood trickling slowly across the floor and Diopside, walking away.

* * *

Yellow reformed in a blaze of light. Senses awakened – the prickling of new skin, the weight of clothes on her body, the nearly-inaudible sounds of Blue Diamond’s hitching breath, the hum of monitors and distant engines, the chatter of passing workers outside the great ornate doors, yes, she was in the old Council Chamber in Blue’s ship, still emblazoned with the Authority’s symbol when they had been four, a pink section and a white section unconvincingly shaded purpleish and orangeish respectively, the only one that had not been updated properly. She landed lightly, but her bulk still made a muted thud rumble round the room.

Blue Diamond didn’t look up. She was sat, undignified, cross-legged, unmade, on the floor on the section that should have been pink, missing her veil and her composure, with dried tear tracks on her face and a hollow, unseeing expression.

“What are we going to do?” Blue Diamond asked, before she even bothered to look up.

Yellow restrained a sigh. Her hand fiddled with the new collar she had manifested. It was high, sweeping up past her collarbones to protect her suddenly-vulnerable-feeling neck, like something White would have worn. She had kept her soft gloves, though they had always annoyed her. It had been her concession to mourning, hiding her oft-dirty and oily hands behind gloves, the pragmatic, task-driven part of herself behind veils of camaraderie-sadness. It seemed a political choice to remove them now, though Pink was certainly no longer dead.

She felt odd, somehow, a little strange, her body too new and her thoughts unstringed, remembering the hideously messy manner of her poofing. Diopside. They had to get –

“Diopside,” Yellow said, ignoring Blue’s question.

“My guards caught her,” said Blue distantly. “One of your peridots notified my private line.” She turned to look at Yellow fully, a hint of something in her chilly cerulean eyes, although Yellow could not have said whether it was amusement or disdain. “They do seem to feel at home on the Diamond Line.”

Yellow said nothing, but her fists clenched and her anger boiled. That the Crystal Gems’ peridot had escaped her retribution personally infuriated her, and Blue knew it. But now that Blue’s eyes were on her, they had lost their mockery, and were tinged with concern as she noted the addition of the collar. Yellow, tense, waited for a remark, but fortunately Blue knew her well enough not to ask. Yellow knew that it had been Blue, as it always was, who had granted her release from the trap of her physical form, and she had seen exactly how Diopside had disarmed her, by going straight for Yellow’s greatest asset, her mind. Unconsciously, Yellow rubbed her neck, and Blue caught the action.

“Gemkind is losing its respect for Diamonds,” Yellow spat, embarrassed.

 “Diopside never had any,” Blue said, but Yellow ignored her.

“We cannot leave this insult unanswered,” Yellow said. “White Diamond must be retrieved. Before you say anything Blue – this must be done.”

“I know,” said Blue, unexpectedly. “Pearl, the viewing screens.”

Blue Pearl activated the screens that showed the view from the ship’s windows. Blue tilted her head up to regard it, looking past Yellow with the light of the stars shining in her eyes. Yellow turned, aggrieved by the delay.

The sight that met her eyes struck instant distaste into her gem and Yellow clenched her hands into fists, the gloves wrinkling like disapproving eyebrows along her whitened knuckles. She could recognise it in an instant, this planet which had caused them so much trouble, hideously idyllic, unplundered, a taunting oasis in the eyes of Homeworld’s need.

“Earth,” Yellow gritted out. “Why have you brought me to Earth?”

“You are better able to control yourself than I, don’t you think?” Blue said, obliquely answering the question.

 _“No,”_ said Yellow, instantly grasping what she meant. “Blue. I will  _not –_ treat with-“

Blue stared at her levelly. “Because my diplomacy worked last time.”

She dipped her head and her hair cascaded down in front of her eyes, and Yellow knew she was doomed even as Blue’s voice broke into a soft whisper. “I do not know what to think about her, Yellow. I can’t trust myself. I just want to hold her with us again so badly, I – I…”

There was a strange mixture of horrified repulsion and longing in Blue’s voice. Yellow knew that Blue had felt conflicted about Pink’s sudden emergence from the dead and the mixed loyalties that it had forced upon her. They had ruined Pink’s planet and her gems once Pink had been shattered, struck her name from their records and her image from their insignia, denied her a place in their Authority and their society. They had left her lumped in with the insurrectionists that had murdered her, and by the time that Steven Universe had made contact in Pink’s unknowing and unwilling stead, the hole they had dug themselves was too deep. Yellow did not trust the gem that Pink had become, wondered if even the shattering had been a farce, avoided the thought of willing betrayal entirely in her mind.

She rasped a breath and Yellow knew without looking that Blue would be crying.

“Get cracked,” Yellow snarled, righteously furious. Of  _course_ Blue foisted the unpleasant task of confronting Pink Diamond onto Yellow, and  _alone._ Of course Blue had left White to her. The way Blue had always done, over the past five thousand years, leaving everything that was messy or painful or difficult to Yellow. Of course, it still worked.

“Pearl, prepare me a ship.”


	65. festival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is festival-time, and the Diamonds have come together to celebrate. polydiamonds. For dedicated reviewer Zirwis, who requested happy polydiamonds taking joy in each other's company (which - is not - precisely - this... but it's in the same ballpark, at least?).

The turn of the century had dawned and it was time to celebrate another page turned in the history of Homeworld. This was one of the rare times when the leaders of the Authority set aside their independent spheres of government and reunited to celebrate together, reassuring their populace that the ties that bound them still held tight.

It was the first century in the new four-century cycle, so the celebrations were being held correspondingly at White’s capital. Yellow, striding down ancient halls decorated with countless fine, crystalline shards banging and clanging disharmoniously at her aggressive pace, was already planning a starkly utilitarian theme for her turn to hold the celebrations next century as the second oldest. Perhaps something celebrating silence, with no chiming shards set to shimmer and sing when one walked by, certainly no singing. Nothing would annoy White more than ever so blatant condemnation of her latest frilly attempt at decorating with the bodies of the dead.

It was foolishly squeamish to refuse to use cracked or condemned gems to power necessary machinery, true. It was, however, a particular brand of sadism to create beautiful works of art showcasing just what would happen to those who defied White’s rule. Yellow had spent no small amount of time in her youth wondering what White would create with bright blue-flecked yellow diamond shards, before she had realised that White took her competitors for personal adornment only.

Those vanquished competitors shimmered and glittered on their chains, wrapped so lovingly around their murderer, as White turned to face the violently opened door.

Yellow halted in the doorway, unable to quite resist the impulse to ask for permission to enter despite so many years passing since she had lived under these tall, fluted ceilings.

White was a creature of light, the sharp edges of the shattered diamonds she wore in looping chains of silver almost too bright to look at. The subtle reds, browns, pinks and silvers gave an illusion of depth to White’s all-but-translucent skin where the pale traceries of blue veins pulsing with godlike ichor strained against the rigid tendons of her graceful wrists and hands. Her eyes were steel, hair windkissed wild and starkly plain shift weighed down by her chains, but her thin mouth curved when she saw Yellow.

“I wondered what that terrible clattering was,” White said.

She spoke with forced lightness, levity caught and wrestled on a tongue used to insults. Still, her voice was too clipped, ringing cold in the echoing space of the vast hall she stood in, decorated by a few idling pearls. Naturally, any room within White’s palace had excellent acoustics. She had been occupied by a console, but now she casually dismissed the distraction of the glowing screen in favour of fully turning to face Yellow.

“I followed the sounds of pointless wailing,” Yellow retorted, and took a few steps closer, tilting her head and sizing up White.

“All these years,” White murmured, her eyes bright under her lashes, “And you still have no appreciation for our fine art.”

It was a familiar argument between them, White being attuned to sound and music in a way that Yellow could never hope to fathom. Familiar enough now that the worst of the bite had been ground out by the teeth of time.

Yellow managed to forget every time she saw her anew the way White had to look up to meet her eye when they stood close together. But the language of the minute flare of her pupil and intake of breath that was only visible because she knew her well and could recognise her tells, Yellow could not forget. No, despite her tone, White was not displeased to see her.

“Leave us,” Yellow ordered, and saw a half second of panic flash through White’s eyes. Composure was harder to maintain when all prying eyes were safely sent away, and it was getting harder every festival to remember that they did not have to treat each other like enemies, but allies… and more.

This was the reason why they held them, of course.

It was always hardest to crack White’s shell. It would only get worse when Blue, always late, arrived, and brought ice to cool the heat that raged in Yellow. It was best to get to White now when she was still starved after a century of isolation, brittle from enduring the weight of years with no touch. Even now, she was letting Yellow corner her, the steel blush darkening on her cheeks.

It was a ridiculous farce, since they both knew that White was the stronger, that Yellow could not hope to overpower her alone. But that weakness made White feel in control enough to allow this, so Yellow couldn’t bring herself to mind too badly.

White stepped back as the door hissed closed. Yellow chased her, the weight of her heavy boots contrasting with the soft pad of White’s bare feet. White was opening her mouth, trying to speak, but then her skinny shoulderblades hit the wall and her chains  _clinked_ and she realised she was trapped, and she swallowed instead.

Tentatively, Yellow placed her hands either side White’s hips, breathing in the wind-clean scent of her, pine trees and snow, cold clear scents that scoured the lungs. White drew closer to her warmth like a moth fluttering after the golden orbit of the sun, striving to reach closer as her papery wings burnt up. A pale hand traced the polished front of Yellow’s gem, then pressed flat against her chest, as if White was going to push her away. A strand of hair tickled Yellow’s chin.

Shuddering at the hand on her gem, Yellow paused, waiting for the invitation to continue. After a pause so thick it felt as if the world had ended and rebirthed within its expanse, White looked up, her searching grey eyes meeting Yellow’s. Her gaze never straying, she consciously relaxed against the wall, allowing the guardedness to drain away and her head to lean back.

Yellow took the offer immediately, moving in to press her nose against White’s neck, her hands kneading the soft fabric covering her body in fingers that suddenly felt too thick and unyielding for such a creature. Though she was the most powerful diamond, White always gave the impression of being created of mist, easy to snap. White’s hands were roaming over Yellow’s muscled shoulders and arms, murmuring compliments in her ear as Yellow kissed her neck.

Yellow drew back to admire her work – and then froze.

Dimly, she remembered working before she had arrived, taking the opportunity for a quick break to recalibrate one of her engines. She certainly remembered reminding herself repeatedly to change her gloves before she went to meet with White.

She did not actually remember having done so, which would explain the greasy black stains now smeared all over White’s pale shift.

“Dearest Yellow,” White said in a voice as soft as the most deadly breeze. “If you’ve got engine oil on my clothes,  _again-“_

Yellow laughed nervously.

* * *

Blue and Pink were pressed hip to hip in Blue’s palanquin as it slowly swayed down the gangplank of the vast ship they had taken from Earth. Blue, having decided to take an extended leave to visit Pink on her new colony, now arrived with her contingent for the celebrations.

The colony was early stages yet, but Blue was impressed by the fortitude and strength of Pink’s new gem production and endeared by the brightness in Pink’s eyes. She remembered well the chaotic times of her first solo colony, struggling to cope with the isolation from her peers. So often she had felt that she could not call for help if she did not want to look weak. Eventually, Blue had learned how to wear the mask and enact the role well enough to do it in her sleep, but Pink was not there yet, and Blue did not want her to suffer any such uncertainty.

Blue had vowed to cherish the openness and warmth in Pink while it lasted. Leadership had a tendency to crush such indulgence from a diamond. Hadn’t it done just that to Yellow and Blue, until, swearing all along that they would be different, they were as harsh and cold as White, needing these centennial celebrations to remember how to coexist with one another? And Pink, of course – Pink, who had mellowed and melted all of them in her own way.

Pink now was all but vibrating next to Blue, her cheeks flushed and leg jittering with hastily repressed energy. Blue rather thought that she was trying hard to look composed, because her spine was ramrod straight, and she wasn’t looking around at the bustling port, filled to bursting with gems of all kind and colour rubbing elbows as they sought to carry out tasks for their mistresses. The palanquin, preceded by guards armed with whips and scowls, cut through the masses like a hot knife, but even a procession of diamonds had to be slowed by the sheer weight of traffic caused by the collision of all four courts into one place. It would only get busier as their empire grew, but even so, it was a haven of industrious distraction, and a strong testament to Pink’s eagerness to see White and Yellow that she could not be torn from staring, as eagerly as a quartz awaiting a trophy, at the door to the private complex within the palace that the diamonds were occupying.

Blue herself was hiding under her veil, the thick cloth comfortingly heavy around her painful joints and the exoskeleton that supported them. She liked to be able to feel the heaviness of the veil, to know and be assured that she was covered. The tight dark weave of the blue fabric dipped low of her eyes, protecting her from the worst of the bright lights. There was nothing she could do about the painful cacophony of sounds that were as characteristic of White’s palaces as silence and dimness were of Blue’s, but she reassured herself with the thought that Yellow, no doubt, having been exactingly punctual and arriving several days earlier than they, was already planning some reflexive strike back at White’s choice to, yet again, decorate with sound that was really only pleasing to her and her court. And gem shards were simply tacky.

The small worry that she hid in her heart gnawed at her again. No matter how times had changed, revisiting the halls of their youth did strange things to Blue and Yellow, and it was never the best idea to leave White and Yellow alone for extended periods of time without the temper of Pink’s exuberance and cheer to mend the brittle cracks they liked carving in each other. But Blue cloaked the fear in shadows and silence, and waited for time to grind it away. Gone were the days wherein they were too powerless to threaten White; they were equals now, insofar as they could be, partners alike in the legions and loyalty they commanded.

“You think too much,” Pink said, and Blue turned slow eyes upon her, feeling her neck complain and ache with abused muscles stretched to their breaking point. Travelling was always rough on Blue in a way that the others could never understand.

Pink’s eyes were almost crimson in their brightness, and though she cupped her hand loosely in her lap, Blue could still see the slight pulse of light in her gem. Expressions were tiresome to form, but Pink could no doubt read the disapproval in Blue’s eyes, because she blushed with embarrassment.

“I can’t help it,” Pink muttered, already twisting away to stare at the door again. “Where are they?”

Most likely working, Blue knew Yellow at all. Still, it was uncharacteristic for White to disregard protocol and not meet them at the door. Blue suppressed a sigh. No doubt she would be hearing about whatever the two of them were cooking up for the rest of the celebrations. This was the second danger of leaving the two of them alone.

Their pearls leading the way, the palanquin proceeded further into the depths of the living complex, leaving the noise behind. As it was a festival, their guards were required to wait at the doors. Only the pearls would remain in attendance.

“Oh, leave that,” Pink finally snapped, and with an energy and exuberance that Blue could only dream of matching, she flung herself forward. The _thud_ upon landing was not precisely graceful, nor composed, but it was enthusiastic. “Come on, Blue!”

Pink set off at a dead run, the shards on the walls echoing her flight discordantly. Her pearl, hesitating, looked at Blue for directions, who sighed, and tapped the palanquin to get it moving again. It was already at top speed when Pink disappeared around the corner, feet drumming on priceless marble.

They were still following at a snail’s pace when Pink screamed.

Blue’s head jerked. Her neck flared with pain from the movement.

A thousand awful scenarios rushed through her mind, memories of awful fights gone physical between Yellow and White, any number of potentially horrifying things, grotesque mutilations caused by bored and vindictive cruelties by the most powerful gems alive.

“Pink!”

Blue gripped the arms of her palanquin, silently urging it faster. Protectiveness surged. She seized control of the water in the mechanisms and promptly burst the pipes with a whip of mental energy. Water, suddenly released from the pipes, exploded out in highly pressurised jets, spraying the walls and knocking over one statue in a crumble of painted plaster.

Building a maelstrom of water with herself in the eye, Blue propelled herself forwards. Her navy robes flapped, the heavy fabric sliding free from her body and leaving her clad only in her dress and shoes. Her dark hair spilled out, and still the water roared, like a flood pouring down the stark hallways, gurgling and gorged on plaster and soluble paint.

She crashed around the corner and almost directly into Pink. The floodwaters raged forward around the islet created by Pink’s stock-still body, frozen in shock as she was. Blue, exhausted from the power expenditure, collapsed against Pink’s back, clinging to her for support without shame. After a moment, her exoskeleton whirred and locked into a standing stance, supporting her thin body in its metal embrace.

Pink was staring, mouth open and eyes huge, at the huge, hulking form of a fusion crouched in the hallway, looking almost as shocked and twice as terrified. The floods battered Ivory without effect, coursing down the hall behind her and flickering with electric charge where it had touched the strange pure pale gold of her skin, like crushed apple juice or fine champagne.

Yellow and White’s fusion was a rare creature, rarer than any others. Blue had only met her once before, but the event was marked inescapably into her memory. As before, she suspected the cause was most likely some equation, some logical problem challenging enough to overcome White and Yellow’s distance with each other. 

She was strange, and horrifying at first sight, with the third arm that twisted grotesquely behind her back.  Other than that glaring flaw, her form was immaculate, dressed in a sharp coat that swirled to her ankles, with golden buttons overlaid and inset with the sparkling shattered gems White wore in chains, and military boots reminiscent of Yellow’s. Her face was long and noble, framed by choppy waves of hair like sunlight-on-ice, lashes full and eyes expressive – yet terrified.

Her mouth was working, trying to grind out speech within the unholy mixture of her gut. She looked panicked, her trembling hand half reaching towards Pink, but trapped midair. She looked like nothing so much as a frightened pearl with a broken plate at her feet frozen before the stern gaze of their mistress, desperate to fix something she did not understand.

“Ivory,” said Blue, with a measure of calmness she did not feel.

The spell was broken with her voice. Ivory blinked, then shuddered in on herself and began to glow with white light, the telltale sign of gems unfusing.

“No!” Pink cried, and charged forward again, catching hold of two of Ivory’s wrists. “Please stay! I’m sorry I screamed – you startled me! I didn’t know-“ She looked up, into Ivory’s face close to her own, and blushed charmingly.

A colour like rich, thick honey was creeping its way up Ivory’s neck. She glanced at Blue for help, but Blue, cautious, waited for Pink. Pink had tamed the beasts in them before. It would not surprise her to see Ivory brought to heel with her smile, either.

“Your name is Ivory?” Pink prompted, and Ivory blinked. She seemed captivated by the sight of Pink’s warm red hands around her pale wrists, keeping hold of her. But she was still shaking, the edges of her form flickering with painful white light. Ivory was not a creature built to last beyond the initial high of completion, the moment of the final puzzle solved.

“She is mute,” Blue imparted softly. “Let her go, Pink.”

“But-“ At a stern glare, Pink noticeably deflated, and did as she was told.

The moment Ivory was released, she vanished into a flash, and Yellow and White sprung apart from each other as if they had been burned.

“Blue – I didn’t-“ Yellow began, immediately with uncharacteristic fluster, but Blue cut her off.

“Caught up working on one of your problems?” She said instead, and Yellow hesitated, eyes darting to White, who stood surly in the center of the hall, expression fiercely unapologetic but for the blush like lead that dusked her cheeks. 

She took the out and agreed. Pink had already latched onto White, who could not help but soften with the full force of that radiant smile turned on her. White stroked Pink’s wild hair as Pink clung to her, chattering questions about Ivory, exclaiming her delight at seeing the fusion. Something in White’s old eyes melted, something that was almost painful to see in its sincerity and sweetness. Something as weary and bitter as White had no business with a lovelorn tenderness that would not be misplaced on a young, flightbound lapis given her first reason to stay tethered to the ground.

Blue turned away. Her body was in agony from her exertion, and she was left feeling impossibly weak and weary. But barely had she begun to limp, slowly, slowly, towards the room Ivory had left, scattered with messy notes but at least blessed with a sofa, then Yellow tapped her shoulder.

“Allow me?” she asked, clearly still tentative, worried that Blue would be angry that she had formed Ivory with White when Green had been lost to them for some time.

For a moment, Blue’s tired mind struggled to understand. It had been so very long. Eventually, however, the memory came – and she nodded, barely a flicker of movement.

With an ease that had never quite faded, Yellow bent and scooped Blue up, lifting her within the protective cage of her arms. She was warm to the touch, always hotter than Blue remembered, the fabric of her coat rough to Blue’s cheek. Allowing her eyes to lid, Blue nestled against her, feeling her breathing even and deepen.

It still felt, after all these years, like coming home.

“Somewhere to rest, please,” Blue said unnecessarily, but Yellow nodded anyway.

“And out of this,” she added. “Did you _have_ to flood the hallway?”

“Did you have to fuse?” Blue retorted, and Yellow conceded her point with a closed mouth.

She began to stride off, leaving White and Pink, who still stood, clasping each other in a flooded hallway like the world would end if they were not touching.

“Are you waiting for something?” Yellow called over her shoulder.

White’s lips pursed at the interruption, but Pink laughed and seized White’s wrist as she had Ivory’s, dragging White after her. The sound of laughter bounced back off the walls, echoed in the thousand twinkling shards lining them like an endless, prismatic reflection of pure symphony built to harmonise around the one joyful note of Pink’s laugh. Yellow paused as the beautiful sounds cascaded around them, her brow furrowing with annoyance.

“So that’s what they’re for,” Yellow muttered.

How like White to have organised an entire festival’s theme around capturing the ringing essence of Pink’s laugh. Behind her, Pink had stopped to stare awestruck at White, who had lowered her head with a small, pleased smile.

“How vile,” Blue murmured against her chest, and Yellow smirked.

“I knew you’d agree.”


	66. the witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lepetitmonstre-front said:  
> "Either we're open about this or I'm ending it" white & yellow diamond.  
> Harry Potter AU whellow. warnings for bullshit maths terms, infidelity, references to sex, animal death, and teacher-student relationships.

_ 1. _

It was the numbers, the secret calculations that had driven Yellow desperately half across the world to seek cursebreakers, tombdivers, and in all good time, the French witch's well-swept stoop. For the French witch was one of the most learned masters of Arithmancy in the world.

Yellow had been seeking such a master since a night of revelation in her Hufflepuff dormitory, passing around a pipe and seeing numbers trawled in the spaces in the smoke, lines of them, like soldiers marching to war. There was something in the numbers, the secret to eternal life and other such things that those with magic in them were all but bound to pursue.

The French witch had accepted her gladly enough. She'd been a professor at Beauxbatons for a while, but she'd left because having people dependent on her hadn't agreed with her. She hadn’t liked to be responsible for shaping so many thoughts, she said. Most of all, Pink hadn’t liked it there. (All lies.)

And White could never act against Pink’s wishes. 

Yellow thought this particular lie was the hollowest of them all, because White had told it to her whilst trailing openmouthed kisses over her collarbone, helpless to resist her own desires, tracing runes over Yellow’s spine. White was an old soul, she said, she preferred the old days. This was a lie too, but Yellow couldn’t figure out why.

Yellow, of course, wasn't the name that her parents had given her at birth, but a named thing was a tamed thing, and among magicfolk who still dealt in apprentices and the old ways, it was best to keep some things to herself. The French witch told Yellow that the name she was to know her by was White, though she answered only to Madame - subconsciously, it seemed, to Yellow’s amusement. The wife was Pink. It was not a lie, but it was not truth either. That was the problem with her lies, Yellow told the beloved she was calling Blue in her letters, the grains of truth in them were impossible to divine.

_ Be careful,  _ warned Blue, whose family was full of old blood, dark magic and madness,  _ The myth is in the mystery, you might not like what you find in the daylight. _

For someone who dealt in the absolutes of the numbers, White never spoke the truth. There was grey all around them, in the squiggles of black on the pages, the way half the lessons White had to teach were spoken in terms of blood and flesh and Yellow’s hand over her own mouth, biting so hard that it hurt, that she tasted blood.

But the knowledge was intoxicating. So Yellow stayed, and learnt how to make the fabric of the world into equations, and how to solve them in White’s sweat.

_ 2. _

White was leaning over Yellow’s shoulder, her perfume thick in Yellow’s nose. The warmth of her body was a steady throb against Yellow’s arm, her robes brushing against Yellow’s wrist. She was lecturing, in a voice both clear and eternal, slipping into French when she looked for a phrase. Yellow didn’t speak French, still, so she approximated phonetic spellings in the corner of her notes and tried to remember to ask Pink later.

They were in the office, clear golden light like champagne over Yellow’s knuckles as she took quick notes. A bright-eyed squirrel watched Yellow intently, drowsy from the spell Yellow had whispered over its sleek fur. The bushy tail quivered as White’s soft voice, always unhurried and perfectly formed, as if she had never stumbled over a word in her life, carried on, weaving around the room in a hypnotic pattern. Yellow felt close, on the edge of some revelation, some profundity in the absurd normalcy of a room that whispered with the tugging currents of White’s magic.

The stream of words parted, like silver around a stone. In that uncomfortable, rock-heavy pause, Yellow whispered, “Let me stay with you.”

White’s instructions barely hitched, but her nails bit down on the thin fabric that separated her from the skin of Yellow’s shoulder. The sting skittered sharp and bright down Yellow’s spine, and she bit back a breath of her own.

“Rub out that section,” White murmured, and Yellow watched as if from a great distance her awkward thumb reaching for the chalky symbols that ringed the spelled squirrel. She swept her thumb through the chalk, the silky feel of the crushed stone, the prickling throb of the released magic.

The barrier around the squirrel flashed, bright enough to make Yellow blink away after-images of intense white light. As it faded, she couldn’t stop herself starting back in horror, against White’s warm body pressing into her.

The squirrel’s left foot twitched. A surprising amount of fresh scarlet blood gushed from the neat stump of its neck, where its inquisitive, charming head had been. The seam was perfect, mathematically precise.

“Pay attention,” White said into Yellow’s hair.

“You knew that would happen,” Yellow accused.

She heard White shrug. “Every action has consequence. The greater the action, the greater the consequence.”

_ 3. _

White lived in the rural areas of the Muggle world, amidst temperate plains and wineries. She kept her wife there, a rosy-cheeked Muggle with soft round arms. A baker's daughter, the witch told Yellow once, that she'd met on her travels, and convinced to come away with her for a better life.

It was a charming lie, a sweet and rustic love story, but it was a lie all the same. Yellow was coming to know that the only parts of White that didn't lie were the numbers that she lived and breathed, the angular lines that flickered in the hollows of her ribs and the rigid knuckles of her hands, that shook when Yellow pressed kisses into the palms like secrets.

Pink never asked much of anything, but she smiled a lot, with incorruptible innocence, and moved with the affected slowness of someone without much to occupy their thoughts. She wore pretty dresses that looked expensive and rich, and invariably tore them. There were always stains on her knees, thumbs of dirt on her cheeks, flour on her hands smeared up to the elbows, snarls in her red, red hair. She did bake a lot, it was true, following the instructions in her little dog-eared cookbooks (German, Italian, French, Chinese, English, Russian, there was seemingly no language that she couldn’t speak) with simple, uncomplicated dedication.

The kitchen was well-lit and brassy, with dented copper pans and a vast range. Pink either kept it clean or White’s magic did, but it was well-swept, the flagstone floor gleaming liquid black. The furniture was solid and sturdy, but not fancy. Pink, in her ruined finery, was at once at odds and natural to her surroundings, humming tunelessly as she bustled about.

When White and Yellow came in for dinner in the evening, White would fuss over her, combing her hair with an ornate, ruby-encrusted brush, kissing her head. Pink was obviously somewhat younger than White – she had no crows-feet wrinkling around her eyes, and her cheeks were still soft and flushed with the exuberance of youth. She was beautiful, intense in colour as she was in her emotions. She felt like a storm, one moment flattering, tender summer rains, the next snaps of angry lightning. White reacted to any unhappy crease on Pink’s face as if she had died, with an almost disturbing amount of passion and sincerity, only relenting when Pink was smiling once more.

If Pink knew that White drew Yellow down on her apprentice’s narrow, hard bunk in the tower and put the lips she used to kiss Pink so fervently to better use elsewhere, she didn’t seem to care. Yellow was tactful enough to not pry, but she was certain to be respectful and help Pink with whatever she was doing if she could, even if it was just replanting the bulbs in the garden again, in a different order than yesterday. White made them grow for her every night, and Pink couldn’t seem to resist trying it out in a new combination the next, just as White never seemed to tire of hearing her bolting out of the front door at some early hour to exclaim brightly over how the flowers had grown, miraculously, overnight. White followed her out in a sleeping robe to watch her delight, sharing a wry, secretive smile with Yellow.

Whatever the two of them had, it was clearly loving, at least. 

_ 4 _ .

White’s office was surprisingly ahead of its time, a structure of clean glass and sharp lines. There was a subtle impression of falling, like the office's smooth paned windows were a crooked glass ball hitched atop the curving tower, like a spine, a rolled neck, something bizarrely feminine and grotesque. The silence was unbearable.

White's quill was stroking the parchment, as raspy as a cat's tongue. There was a tiny ink stain on the cuff of her robe, wet gloss upon black fabric. Her penetrating gaze was entirely occupied by the letter, but Yellow could read the minute shift of muscle in her shoulders, in her cheek, and knew that she was listening to Yellow's silence with all her might.

"Either we're open about this, or I'm ending it," Yellow said, all in a rush like she was going to lose her nerve, eyes squeezed shut and weight balanced forward on her toes. She bounced a moment, then forcibly ruled herself and opened her eyes, just to catch it, that momentary flicker, across White's impassive face.

For half a moment, White had looked hurt, had looked afraid, had looked  _ affected.  _ It hurt to see it. It meant that White was only ever pretending not to care when she left Yellow’s bed to rejoin her wife across the courtyard. It'd be easier, Yellow thought, if she didn't care at all.

But if White wasn’t going to say anything, then Yellow had to. Pink’s shape loomed large between them, the impossibility of White’s marriage, the immorality of their dual relationship, teacher and lover.

"I wasn't aware that there was anything to be open about," White responded evenly, her attention seemingly on her letter. For a brief, intense second, her eyes pierced Yellow, with that eerie, pervasive quality that they had, as if they could reach inside her, and read her, and found everything within her powerfully desirous. She had a pinched, high-hollowed face, hair the colour of fresh snow, and had a perpetual aura of unfinishedness, like the time had taken all her true colours as it had stripped pale the marble of classical statues.

“Is it even possible for you to not lie to me, anymore?” Yellow asked bleakly, and White steepled her fingers and actually  _ looked up,  _ now, looked up and in with that horrifyingly eldritch stare.

“You don’t want me to,” she said, simply. “You wish to take what I offer, and leave. Do transient things deserve truth?”

Rebuked, Yellow felt nervousness crop up low in her stomach. White terrified her, to be truthful, her sharp nails and unforgiving eyes were relentless, even in passion, Yellow had to be careful lest White cut too deep. There was a feeling, even then, that White could reach between her legs and keep pressing upward, could hold her heart in her fist and yank it out of her mouth. Flesh was only a chemical array, a minute code that could be twisted and tweaked until it didn’t exist any longer.

Nothing escaped mathematical description, after all.

“What if I wanted to stay?” Yellow whispered, and White’s lips curved, invitation and cruelty both.

“Tell me. Do you truly believe that you deserve such a thing?”


	67. of softness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and White have been fused since before Pink's birth to deal with the rebel threat. A moment of celebration causes them to lose control. Polydiamonds. Anon asked what would have to happen for Cyan to hug someone.

Yellow was limping, smoke clinging to her clothes and a sooty mark on her cheek, half a dozen poofed soldiers lining her coat pockets, and a pock-marked ship that had listed after a week of absence into Homeworld’s ports… but she was there, whole and unmarked, standing sheepishly in the doorway to the council room, not quite looking repentant.

“The rebels aren’t a problem anymore,” Yellow announced, and Cyan jerked her head up from the reports she was examining and stared at her, all four eyes going round and huge and then blinking, rapidly.

 _“Yellow?”_ Cyan blinked again, worryingly out of sync, and then the softer, larger second pair of eyes that Yellow privately always thought of as Blue’s began to well up with tears. Cyan didn’t even seem to notice as the wetness rolled down her hollowed cheeks, but Yellow winced to see it. “You are – you are here.”

It was highly unlike Cyan to stumble over herself, or be anything less than perfectly well-spoken. To Yellow’s burgeoning alarm, Cyan blinked out of sync and then her body suddenly wobbled, distorting into light before snapping back together like a rubber band.

Stepping forward, Yellow awkwardly raised a hand, desperately wishing there was something she could say. She’d put off confronting Cyan upon her return, not relishing the special tongue-lashing that Cyan, made up of White’s acerbity and Blue’s iciness, could provide for her reckless actions in going off to confront the rebels herself, particularly considering that Yellow was not a gifted fighter by any stretch of the imagination. Yellow’d needed something, though, something tangible to do and present and  _know_ that she had helped Homeworld as it spun towards crisis, with two Diamonds permanently fused to work four times as hard and efficiently, even young Pink Diamond wasn’t enough.

“I am,” Yellow said, cautiously, because Cyan had a distant and vaguely unfriendly relationship with her own emotions – warmth and openness were her anathema.

“You are unharmed of course.” Cyan presented it like a statement, but the fact that she wobbled out of her chair, glitching twice more before she was all the way up, belied her certainty. Yellow wondered, with a tickle of guilty excitement, if Cyan would unfuse. She understood the necessity of Cyan’s capability for detachment, but she missed tender, emotional Blue, and quiet, soft White, not just the brilliant, faceted, fractal-edges of the two of them that made up Cyan into something similar but wholly different.

“Of course,” Yellow echoed, trying not to be alarmed as Cyan moved haltingly towards her, with the shaky, nervous steps of a newborn colt, shivery on her legs. Even more worryingly, Cyan didn’t appear to have any intention of stopping or slowing, even as she definitely encroached upon the careful bubble that Yellow kept to respect Cyan’s peculiar brand of haphephobia. A grunt of confusion escaped Yellow before she could stop it.

Cyan was trembling now, her body shifting rapidly between white and her pale blues. “You – are – here,” she said, thickly, and then abruptly, she launched herself at Yellow’s chest, knocking her off-balance.

“Oh – ah, and you are-“ Cyan’s arms tightened like a vice around Yellow’s shoulders and suddenly all four eyes began to cry and that was even worse, and Yellow had never touched her before but now she was patting Cyan’s spine and trying not to focus on how much taller and stronger Cyan actually  _was,_ the unspoken threat of a fusion’s power. “Hugging,” Yellow said dumbly, “We’re – hugging.”

“Do not-“ Cyan’s nails were digging harshly into Yellow’s shoulders and neck and she was clinging to Yellow like Yellow was the only rock in the middle of a stormy sea. “Do not  _ever_ frighten me like that again.”

“I’m sorry,” said Yellow uncomfortably, “It needed to be done, we couldn’t send Pink.”

“But White could have-“ Cyan gripped her tighter.  _“No,”_ she hissed, and disturbingly her voice fractured as her body did. Her gems began to glow reluctantly as she struggled to stay together. She hadn’t been made for such extreme emotional responses. “I –  _I –_ wanted-“ Cyan’s tongue was clearly growing thicker, her voice was getting harder and harder to understand. Her body wavered into two shapes, held together by dripping lines of light. “I wanted to tell you-“

“Relax,” Yellow offered weakly, uncertain of what to say.

From outside the room came an excited drumming of huge feet, and then Pink threw open the door and spilled in, shattering the scene. Cyan’s destabilising body snapped together again, united in affront as she whirled, unconsciously not letting go of Yellow, and barked,  _“Pink, do not run in the halls!”_

“Y-Yes – er – Y-Yellow?” Pink was gaping at the two of them, at Cyan who never touched anyone embracing Yellow, Yellow who Pink had learnt to come to for the occasional touch or contact all growing things needed, because Cyan was fundamentally incapable of providing that service. Yellow saw her struggling between the propriety that Cyan had so laboured over teaching her and her young, puppyish desire to celebrate Yellow’s return.

Yellow decided to make the decision for everyone. “Come here,” she said, gruffly, and Cyan half-turned, wide-eyed and already trying to escape, but Pink was too fast. The youngest Diamond bounded up and enfolded Cyan from behind, immediately, naturally welcoming, but straining to reach Yellow over Cyan’s taller shoulder.

It was too much for Cyan. With a last shudder, she fell apart, and at once Blue was nestled under Yellow’s chin, White holding her up with Blue’s soft chubby legs wrapped around White’s angular hips, the dandelion-fluff of White’s hair tickling a surprised but delighted Pink’s face.

“Blue,” murmured Yellow, in a tone that said a thousand words, and cherished the open, easy way that Blue turned and smiled, all the way to the soft, expressive eyes that Yellow knew and loved so well. It was impossible to remember how small and yet expansive she was without the exhaustive and painful stretching Blue did to match their height.

Pink drew back a little, shyer now, but with the gentle innocence of youth she was touching the unforgiving planes of White’s face, saturated as it was with a blush as deep as Pink’s fingers.

“Hello,” Pink said, eventually, with enough brightness to power a solar system. “Do you know who I am?”

“H-Hello Pink,” White said, formally, and Pink beamed as Blue twisted and said, with more warmth but just as much sincerity, “Of  _course.”_


	68. monster's mourning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pink is dead. Blue and White deal with the pain - together. Even monsters may mourn.

“My Diamond.” Yellow Pearl broke Yellow Diamond’s concentration with a quiet word. Yellow Pearl shrunk under Yellow Diamond’s glare, but didn’t have to be told to hurry up before she delivered her message. “Pink Pearl and Blue Pearl have fused.”

“What?” For a moment, Yellow Diamond’s mind spun, lost without context. Fused? Pearls only fused when their mistresses did, Blue Pearl and Pink Pearl had no reason to fuse. For half a second, she thought of Purple, the gem that Pink and Blue made together before–

And then realisation hit, like a lodestone sinking deep into her belly, which suddenly churned with nausea. Pink Pearl belonged to White now.

Cyan.

“Where are they?” Yellow Diamond demanded, standing just a touch too swiftly to pretend that she was unperturbed. “Pearl!”

“The East Wing third fountain, with the leaping pearls,” Yellow Pearl reported, and Yellow Diamond didn’t stop to question how she knew this, she had accepted long ago that she would never penetrate the secret network of pearls.

Yellow left immediately. She forced herself to walk slowly, not too fast, as to not alarm the gems swarming around her feet, and not accidentally crush one with a misstep. All the while, she was thinking, worrying, anxiety bubbling in the pit of her stomach. What was Cyan doing? Blue and White promised not to fuse anymore. Cyan was dangerous. Yellow had to stop her.

The East Wing third fountain plaza was largely deserted, a few blue gems wandering in between the fluted pillars, accompanied by pearls. Purple Pearl was instantly visible, twice the height of the others, dancing a slow waltz with herself around the fountain’s base. Cyan was nowhere in sight.

A trap?

“Summon a squad of jaspers,” Yellow ordered. “Keep them back until I call for them.”

Yellow Pearl nodded, her pinched face concerned.

She approached Purple Pearl alone. Halting her dance without opening her eyes as if an internal sense had alerted her to Yellow’s advance, Purple Pearl bowed her head and clasped her hands, and said, unasked, “The second corridor, third door on the left.”

Yellow did not bother to acknowledge her, or her own relief at the short conversation. It clawed someplace unrecognised, seeing Purple’s Pearl, the fusion of Blue and beloved Pink, a flagrant memory of a better time. Yellow told herself that she was simply worried about Cyan, that the pangs that jabbed down from her gem were fear only.

The corridor was empty, thick with dust. Just as Purple Pearl had said, the third door was slightly ajar. Yellow heard Cyan before she saw her – the quavering of tremulous breath, the rasp of a sob.

She took up the breath to quell her nervousness at what she might find, and then shoved the door opened, preparing to summon the jaspers.

Instead, she paused, taken aback.

Cyan was hugging her knees to her chest, nestled in the corner of the emptied room, surrounded by old monitors covered in dust sheets that loomed around her like shaggy grey mountains. When Yellow came in, she lifted her head, her four eyes widening the look that was so painfully, vulnerably Blue that Yellow’s heart softened, despite her best wishes to the contrary.

Cyan was crying, tear tracks streaking her cheeks, her long electric blue hair falling in messy waves around her face, breath uneven and ragged. She turned away in shame when Yellow looked at her, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve and hiding it in her knees again. Cyan hugged herself tighter.

“You’re not supposed to be…”

“I know.” Cyan’s voice was a whisper. “I could not bear to be alone any longer. I had to remember her. I will not leave this room.”

“You fused to grieve Pink.” Yellow shook her head, disbelieving. It was exactly the sort of thing that Blue would do, but she had expected better of White than to indulge her. She ignored the voice that whispered of envying them their comfort in being together.

“She was exquisite,” Cyan murmured. “The brightest jewel has been lost from our crown.”

Yellow didn’t know what to say to that, so instead, she crossed the room, sitting down beside Cyan. She could keep an eye on her from here. Her head thumped back against the wall with a sigh.

“I will not be touched,” Cyan reminded her. Yellow nodded.

For a long time, the only sound was Cyan’s crying, a soft, raspy gurgle from tear-torn throat, the occasional ugly sniffle. She rocked sometimes, squeezing her knees to her chest, and made low animal moans, the broken sort of sound that seeped out when there were no more tears to shed. At last, Cyan tipped her head back with a hoarse gasp, tears streaming freely out of her four eyes.

“How can you bear this?” she groaned. “How can you bear all this – remorse? I –  _feel guilt.”_

Yellow said nothing, but after a moment’s careful consideration, she put her hand down on the floor next to Cyan. The fusion’s hand almost slapped down, then hesitated, long, sharp taloned fingers curling up into an uncertain spider’s fist. Lightly, Cyan placed her hand on the floor besides Yellow’s.

“Oh,” Cyan said, as if a revelation had come across her, “You are being compassionate.” She blinked, and new tears stood in her eyes. “I am not worthy of your compassion.”

Yellow’s smallest fingertip edged away from her closed fingers, until it touched the very tip of Cyan’s cold one. Cyan let it rest, with a hiccupy breath of surprise.

Together, in the dusty silence with Pink’s ghost hanging heavy over them, they sat, and Cyan wept.


	69. discretion advised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candyfloss/Cyan "It's hard to believe you actually care about me when you're hell-bent on your friends not finding out about us!" Anon prompt on tumblr. Modern AU.

“It’s hard to believe you actually care about me when you’re hellbent on your friends not finding out about us!” Candyfloss hissed over the table, cradling her cup of hot chocolate. She still looked cold from the walk to the cafe they sat in, flushed-berry cheeks and bright red nose peeking over the top of her thick scarf.   
Cyan steepled her fingers. A pang of irritation occurred to her. She was annoyed with Candyfloss for dismissing her efforts to watch out for her sister in a new city. Cyan had actually expended a significant amount of effort to honour her promise to a worried White and protect her most beloved daughter from harm, including the weekly coffee meet-ups that they were partaking in now. Cyan despised having her efforts, when she could be bothered to extend them, cheapened.  
She did not blame Candyfloss for being their mother’s favourite - she was an endearing child, round-cheeked and robust, delightful to be around, which put her in sharp contrast to gangly, unfriendly Cyan and antagonistic, awkward Ivory.  
“I have told you that you would not enjoy their company,” Cyan said with as much patience as she could muster.   
It was true. Cyan only had one person who counted as a friend, and that was Candyfloss’ half-sister Orange, but the associates Cyan saw in day-to-day life would regard Candyfloss’ unique brand of naïveté and arrogance with mockery and distaste. Candyfloss could not bear to be unloved or made light of. She and Cyan, who treated everyone but Orange with the same icy indifference, had never got along because of that.  
Candyfloss snorted jealously. Her pretty face twisted ugly when she was like this, always envious and covetuous of what other people had. Cyan had never had much of anything, but Candyfloss would still take it if she could.  
“Very well,” said Cyan, unperturbed. “You have my number if you require my help.”  
She rose to her feet and put a ten pound note on the table, to cover the bill. Candyfloss shot up, mirroring her action.  
“Where are you going?” Cyan’s little sister demanded to know. “You can’t walk away from me!”  
“Is that so?” Cyan asked, and did just that.  
They met again next week, at exactly the same time, and Cyan left after a few minutes and a settled bill, like always.


	70. bedsharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anonymous said: Pink is gunna need a bigger bed to fit both Black and Ivory." Pink/Black/Ivory.

They only fit in two at a time. Black curls around Pink, a great cliff range of iridescent black, the muted shimmers of green and purple dancing in the hollow of her throat. Her central eye remains open, sharp and watchful, her other two half-lid, lazy and warm. Her huge hands will caress Pink’s spine, comfortable and not daring to stray, fluffs and pats down Pink’s hair in equal measures. Waking next to her is always accompanied by a pulse of terror, because Black sucks the light from the room, pours gelid shadows over everything, so thick Pink screams. Black doesn’t mean to, Pink knows, she clucks and hums worriedly, four huge arms caging around Pink while Pink fights her way out of the oppressive, choking darkness. When Pink is done - crying, sobbing, promising to never need a gentle embrace to lull her to sleep ever again, Black will, with the greatest tenderness, kiss the bridge of Pink’s nose, each eyelid, her own three eyes rippling blue yellow grey sympathetically.  
With Ivory, it’s - different.  
Ivory jitters and shudders and gasps, back arching in rapturous, trembling awe, body teetering on the edge, when Pink tries to snuggle into her. She cries, constantly, cheeks wet, hating herself, clawing at herself with the arm that bends the wrong way. She flinches when Pink reaches out, gabbers an endless stream of whimpering apologies. Her sleep is restless and haunted, full of kicking and sweaty nightmares, she sleeps shallowly, bursts with torture. Pink learns to immobilise the wrong bending arm against her body, freezing Ivory solid, heavy breathing, heat, unhealed scratches weeping on Ivory’s hips from her own nails, and nuzzle sweetly against the back of Ivory’s neck. For once, Ivory has no room for hating herself when her senses are full of Pink, Pink, Pink. She wakes to Ivory clinging to her, suffocating clammy heat, windswept, whispering apologies for her own presumptuousness even as she squirms closer.  
Pink doesn’t know how they are together. The bed is only big enough for two.


	71. travelling to earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Topaz and Aquamarine, on the way to Earth for the first time.

The little aquamarine has a strident voice that pipes clear and high all around the ship. She chatters, almost incessantly, leaning insouciantly back in her command chair with screens at her fingertips. It suits Topaz’s silence. Aquamarine does not expect her to talk, if anything, she seems to far prefer the sound of her own voice.

 _“Honestly,_ Topaz,” Aquamarine titters, alternating between reading out the key details of Peridot 5XG’s report and making acerbic comments, “I do  _question_ why I’m needed here at all, you could do it all by yourself!”

Topaz has already been briefed on the mission, but, as Aquamarine chimes, there’s no problem with little reminders, just to make sure they’ve got all the pertinent details,  _“though my memory is quite perfect, Topaz!”_

Topaz stands solidly on the insignia of the Diamond Authority, feet widely planted, hands held in loose parade rest, and her head tilted up towards Aquamarine on her command chair, watching without comment. She is fused – unfusing feels like losing one of her eyes, half of her brain and body. Aquamarine makes no comment, Topaz is designed for this, after all.

Waiting for their inevitable arrival on Earth, enthroned in the solid comfort of her strongest self, is no problem for Topaz.

Aquamarine, however, is almost  _bored,_ already anticipating their successful return. She barely sits still, the vibrating blur of her wings the near-silent precursor to her voice as she zips around the ship, as fast and brief as a hopping sparrow. Topaz, silent and solid, plays the part of a convincing and unmoving tree, only her eyes following Aquamarine.

Eventually, Aquamarine comes to rest, perching on Topaz’s head as she rattles on about the Diamonds, the favour she’s certain to gain on their return, the  _easiness_ of the mission, Topaz, really, but with all the  _failures_ surrounding Earth, it’s no question why the gracious Diamonds sent the  _best!_ Aquamarine utters a fluttering sigh, her little feet idly kicking the back of Topaz’s head.

“It won’t take long, Topaz,” Aquamarine assures her, and Topaz feels her shifting about, huffing little sighs until she’s comfortable, on her back with one hand languidly dangling in front of Topaz’s visor. Topaz stares at the tiny blue hand, the details of the clean, square nails, the wrinkles of the pads of Aquamarine’s fingers, all done in miniature like a doll. Aquamarine has the soft, finely-boned hands of an uppercut, made to wield nothing but screens and her wand.

Finally, possibly for the first time since they entered the ship, Aquamarine goes quiet, and then makes a soft, snuffly sort of sound. A pause, and then another, like a hiccupping kitten. After a while, Topaz realises that Aquamarine has fallen asleep on her head. And is snoring.

Topaz is not sure how to take that, so she waits in steady silence. She takes care to keep her head still and her spine straight. It would not do to disturb Aquamarine before they reached their destination.


	72. five times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five times White Diamond kissed Blue Diamond, and one time Blue kissed White. Warnings for referenced abuse and character death.

The first time White Diamond kissed Blue was at a dance. 

One of the formal balls of Homeworld, nobles thronging around their ankles, swaying without properly moving for fear of crushing an unwary gem under their massive feet. Blue Diamond’s arms were linked loosely around White’s neck, White’s hands chastely on her hips. 

Blue was concentrating, still young enough to have not quite mastered her exoskeleton, but White’s body moved with the ease of air gusting through a forest, winding sinuously between tree trunks. Her pale eyes did not stir from Blue’s face, though Blue herself looked anywhere but White, hoping perhaps, in vain, to spot Yellow lounging against one of the walls. 

She never appeared at the dances. The mockery the dances made of her useless, songless gem hurt her too much. But Blue… liked it. Liked being held by White, firm in the grip of the Authority. In a perverted way, dancing with White like this was one time Blue could pretend she was the same as White. 

And then, suddenly, White’s hand was tugging her hip close to Blue’s and she nearly tripped and her other hand found the back of Blue’s skull and held her in place and she kissed her - soft and thin and not wholly unpleasant, lukewarm and faintly wet. 

White kissed like somebody who had plenty of technical skill but no practice, clumsily, a little desperately, as if she were half-afraid that Blue would try to run away. Blue had frozen, a natural prey instinct, and White determinedly kept going until Blue felt it had gone on long enough for her to safely pull away. 

Without a word, Blue hid her revolted expression against White’s shoulder and they continued dancing. Later, Yellow asked her, slightly sulkily, with engine oil smeared on one cheek and her hair sticking straight up like a bottle brush, how it went. Whether she had fun. 

“Oh,” said Blue, carelessly. “It was as boring as they always are." 

* * *

The second time White kissed Blue was in a corridor not far from Blue’s room. She had caught her coming down and before Blue could say a word to her, her face had furrowed up with anguished determination and she took hold of Blue’s cheeks and kissed her. 

It was better this time, and when White’s other hand found her spine and pressed Blue’s softness against her sharp lines, Blue allowed herself to go without turning rigid. When they broke apart, White’s cheeks were flushed and she was breathing quickly, in sharp, excited bursts. She looked, Blue thought later, almost deliriously pleased. 

Blue only felt cold. 

"Blue?" 

It was Yellow, a very small-voiced Yellow hunching her shoulders and making herself tiny and more hulking all at once. She lowered her head when White looked at her, submissively, and her fingers twisted nervously with each other.

White released Blue and stormed past, ruffling Yellow’s hair and making her flinch and cringe. White only laughed. 

When she was gone, Yellow sidled up to Blue and blurted, "Blue - what-?" 

"Ask me later,” said Blue. She was in no mood to explain kisses and intimacy to Yellow now. 

* * *

The third time White kissed Blue was with Yellow’s blood on her teeth. Yellow was sprawled at their feet, White’s boot planted on her chest and preventing her from rising, but still breathing, though her closed eyelids looked like bruises and her cheeks were sallow. An ecstatic, dreamy smile was on her face, a combination of submission and blood loss. 

White, hyped up on blood and sweat, kissed cruelly this time, biting Blue’s lips hard enough to make them bleed and digging her nails into Blue’s hips. Blue bore it patiently, but when White was done she placed her palm flat on White’s chest and pushed hard, hard enough to slam White against the wall. 

White’s head cracked back against the stone and she let it rest there, breathing heavily and staring at Blue with lidded eyes the colour of smoke. 

“Get up, Yellow,” Blue ordered, “We’re leaving." 

Yellow laughed. 

* * *

The fourth time White kissed Blue was at Pink’s urging, an almost chaste brush and movement of lips. Pink was sat on White’s lap, one arm hooked around her neck and the other toying idly with the silver chains around White’s neck, watching with avid interest, and Yellow fidgeted uncomfortably at Blue’s side as White’s pale hand caressed Blue’s jaw, her other hand languid on Pink’s thick hip. 

Blue responded obediently, humouring Pink, and it was possibly the most pleasant kiss from anyone but Yellow she had ever received - White did not push her or demand from her, but simply took what she was given and paid careful, tender attention to it. When they parted, White’s mouth releasing Blue’s bottom lip with a pop, White patted Blue’s cheek and leaned back, smirking slyly up at Pink. 

"Well?” she demanded and Pink grinned and yanked on the chains.

 "Kiss Yellow next,“ she ordered imperiously. "I want to see you kiss Yellow." 

Yellow swallowed. White raised an eyebrow, but then she cockily curled an inviting finger at Yellow. 

 "You heard her,” White said coldly, and Yellow outright shuddered. Blue held her hand. “Come here and kiss me, Yellow. I won’t tell you twice." 

* * *

The fifth and final time White kissed Blue was stolid and depressed. 

Pink Diamond’s ghost hung between them like a death knell, and White slumped colourlessly, as if the life force had been drained out of her, leaving her something crumpled and torn as fragile paper curled up in a clutched spider’s fist. She was lying down, her feet hanging sideways off the wrong end of the bed, and Blue crouched earnestly at her side with Yellow twinning her, their hands overlapping on White’s breastplate. 

And White had kissed her, as suddenly as she usually did, when Blue bent down to check if she was still breathing. Perhaps, momentarily, she had mistaken her for Pink, because her hands fumbled up to hold Blue’s head down against hers so she couldn’t run away like impetuous Pink was wont to do, and her kiss gained a clumsy, needy desperation Blue had not felt from her in years. 

Blue, her heart aching with pity, responded as if it had been shy Yellow whose lips she worshipped to kiss her, her hands cupping loosely around Blue’s shoulders, gently enough that Blue could always pull away, instead of ancient, withered White, something inside her broken from the loss. 

When they pulled apart, Blue’s tears were running down White’s cheeks. White stared at them dully and Blue saw White’s heart break in her eyes. She turned her head away, ashamed. 

"Go away,” she said flatly. 

“No!” Yellow burst out with one of her usual embarrassing displays of passion, and she seized White’s limp body and shook her and hugged her in equal measures. 

Blue sat back on her heels and touched her lips. “We should leave her, Yellow. If she wants to rot in grief, let her." 

* * *

Five thousand years later, Blue kissed White for the first time. 

White was half corrupted and cringing, peering nearsightedly out of a shaggy matt of goo-thickened hair, blind in one eye and equipped with scales, teeth and claws. She moved bent double, hissing and skittering, but the hand that was still human held her mace confidently, and she led the way back to Blue with ease, a shocked and horrified Yellow in tow, missing one arm and staggering. 

Blue rushed to Yellow, easing her down against the floor and cradling her head in her arms. Yellow’s face was short and tightened with pain. 

"Those rebels-” Yellow wheezed, “Earth - Blue?“

"The rebels did this?” Blue snarled. 

Claws clicked on the stone floor and White was edging closer to them, whining piteously in the back of her throat. Yellow had gone to take White there, to live out the last of her days as a mad monster on a planet wreathed in Pink’s memory instead of shut up like a dog in a cage on Homeworld. Earth was supposed to be empty. The mace scratched on the floor when White moved.

“You saved her,” Blue whispered, struck. “You brought her home." 

Before she could second guess herself, Blue darted forward and brushed the shaggy mane away from White’s warped, half-human face, beheld the terrible pain in her foggy eyes, and kissed her cracked lips, feeling the bulge of White’s monstrous teeth straining against her lips and her rattling, wheezing breath. 

Blue leaned back and then pulled White into the embrace, Yellow grunting as White almost toppled onto her scratched chest, claws, scales, teeth and all. 

The Authority clung to each other, all weak, all crippled, all monstrous, and alike in grief.


	73. the empress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the empress: passion, ferocity, fertility;
> 
> “You cannot do this!”  
> possible AUs/settings/ideas: motherhood, protectiveness, villain au. warnings for main character death, past abuse. my au diamonds.

The new one is young, younger than Orange could have ever thought possible. She looks at Blue and Yellow-and-Pink like parents, as if they could ever be something so human or trustful. It is not her fault; she was raised soapy and sweet and loud in the tender growing-beds of planet Earth, among all those new-Age cracks who believe in love instead of destiny, freedom instead of authority, kindness instead of cruelty. But to the old, cold remnants of the empire shattered when White Diamond did, she is unbearably young.

_“Sacrifices,” White says in a voice, soft, so soft, “must be made in order for progress to continue.”_

_She stands at a cliff-edge, bathed in twisting winds that pluck at her hair and robe like tugging fingers. Her pale feet are small and bare on the dirt. There are gem shards between the toes. Her bloodless mace hangs from a lax hand. She goes to battle unarmoured with the confidence of the nearly-immortal, translucent skin shimmering like a pearl in the fires of war. In the other, she holds a net of silver chains, each broken link holding a dead sibling strangled before they had been allowed to live._

In her innocence there are no wars, no empires struggling to stay afloat, crushed under the weight of their own tyranny. The new one is born young and allowed to stay that way, protected and kept loving-soft, and though she is tallest and strongest and could conquer with ease, nothing seems more laughable than finding authority in her smile.

She sparkles to see Orange when Yellow-and-Pink can no longer cope alone with the surge of acidic grief that follows the loss of the first empress, burning even as it aches, greets Purple, any fusion they can make between the three of them, as if they are not warped things, ugly things that do not deserve to breathe. Orange supposes they are not, to the young one. She does not know how it used to be.

Or perhaps she knows better than how it used to be.

_Orange burns. She is impotent rage, bottled up in every hunching, bulging muscle, her breath washes hot and static over her chest, chin lowered like a bull about to charge. Blue’s gemstone rests, tiny for all its worth, in a fold of her coat. She is bloodied, gem-blood torn across her shoulders and cheek, one crazed eye half-gone._

_They cannot win this war, the rebellion’s armies are overrunning them. They cannot win this war, not without something drastic, foolish, like the sacrifice of one of the most powerful warmongers that ever lived. Orange reads White’s intent in her sloped shoulder, the way she looks at the smoky skyline as if she is memorising it, knowing it will be the last time she looks upon it._

_It cannot be permitted. Orange is angry, not stupid, so she makes demands and doesn’t bother with questions._

The new one does not look diamond at all.

_White appears to understand, however, turning to favour Orange with a small little smile over her shoulder. It is a fleeting thing, snatched away with the next breath of wind._

_They both know that White has no choice if she wants any of the rest of them to survive. With White holding the line alone, the rest of the troops have time enough to pull back and regroup, reinforce an old stronghold and bury into the cracks of the planet’s skin like termites fleeing the harsh light of extinction. They will overcome her eventually. But it will be enough._

None of them are diamond, not anymore. Diamond is defined by pressure, by heat and fire and war, and total crushing of opposition. They are no diamonds, not now. Orange remembers what that was, so long ago, before the world became soft coal, gentle graphite. It wouldn’t have been possible, before. How could White, how could any of them, ever have foreseen that the empire of gemkind would not end in that final annihilation on the battlefield, but with an offered hand, an empathetic smile, and a peace treaty?

Such a thing was never in her nature.

_“You cannot dictate to me,” White reminds her, with the weary patience of the eldest of immortals. “But do not fear.” She turns away again, and with slow effort, forces herself to drop the chains she has worn since before Orange’s components had been formed in the hearts of dying planets. “You will have enough… to continue.”_

The raw, unmistakeable power of the first diamond, the only diamond, who made peacetime children gentler than herself to teach her how to be in a world without war, but could not bear to listen to what they had to say. Orange who is Yellow-and-Pink still bears the scars of that cruel motherhood, that germination within the cold womb of a diamond used to crushing souls, not raising hearts.

And yet the young one weeps when she hears loud voices, turns her cheek away when she sees violence. A gentle creature like her is nothing for the battlefield – but the front-lines are different now. Memories, like echoes, drown out the present, make lies the words of peace in Orange’s ears. She expects spears, but finds only smiles. It is deeply unnerving, but the young one only shakes her head indulgently, as if Orange is the one who cannot understand.

_“You cannot go when you are needed here!” Orange roars, and of course, of course, White only grins at the challenge, eyes bright as she turns once more to face Orange. Words are jumbling in Orange’s throat, cracking and crying, and White shakes her head._

_“Not to live,” she says, simply._

_White lifts her mace, and steps backwards into death, off the cliff-edge into the storm of the war. She does not know it then, but in a single, sure stroke, she, who so sternly resisted change, has irrevocably ensured that whatever may come, things will never be the same._

They have done better, with the new one, who needs no war or pain or hate to define herself. It is progress, but still Orange remembers the murderer who made herself mother to diamonds. In time, Orange thinks, she will learn how the new one does it, and become diamond again. In time, she will learn to understand how to smile instead of threaten, how to befriend instead of betray.

In time.


	74. 73. earth music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after Reunited. Yellow ponders recent revelations.

Some hours after the revelation that for thousands of years their grief had been unfounded after all, Rose – no, Pink – withdrew to attend to her subjects, leaving Yellow and Blue aimless and massive on a foreign shore. The star which lit the sky was being steadily obscured by the curvature of the planet, and as the pollution of its light dimmed, the surrounding galaxy became visible to the naked eye. Small lights like gem-glow punctured the gathering darkness as the humans flooded back into their shoddy huts, escorted by ...Pink's... eccentric force of off-colours, decorated all with the damnable star. 

Yellow was sat some distance into the ocean, her lower half immersed in water as she plucked fragments of her ship off the sea-floor. Unlike Blue, Yellow had come prepared for a fight with a small squad of soldiers and a few technicians. Most had survived the crash in their bubbles, unharmed, but Yellow's search found the few gems who had been knocked free cracked, and others still gone into the dull silence of shards. She sent those who could be salvaged back to Homeworld in a bubble, to be dealt with by her Pearl. It was a regrettable waste, one that could have been avoided if Pink had told the truth sooner.

The water was regrettable, too, as was their very presence on this accursed rock. Yellow was very aware of the Cluster below the crust, tamed though it was, for now. It, like everything else, was not behaving as it should. Was nothing as it should be on this planet? Pink's farce seemed like a pointless waste of all their time, so wildly unbelievable that it could not be true, yet Yellow could not deny what she had felt as Pink had touched their minds in the midst of the battle. 

Blue simply seem to feel an ecstasy of relief; she had not stopped hovering around Pink as if frightened that she would disappear from their midst. But Yellow, Yellow did not know what to feel. How could she return to Homeworld with this strange version of Pink, and admit that Pink had lied to them all unnecessarily for years – and for what? Temporary rebellion, and little else? Yellow did not know, and hated not knowing.

She wondered what White would think. She wondered if Pink's bizarre little form would survive finding out.

It was perhaps telling that when the music came drifting over the waves, Yellow's head snapped up in something that she immediately attempted to convince herself was not fear, but simply caution. Telling, perhaps, that her mind had been lingering on failures, disappointments, and inevitable punishments, and had lept to link the sound of unexpected song to White Diamond, as if she had summoned her and her mocking song simply by thinking of her. 

But as Yellow scanned the darkening shoreline, picking out the shine of Blue's hair as she bent to watch Pink, she saw no giant save the insulting amalgamation Pink had built her base in the shape of. There was no brilliant, pale gleam save that the moon, almost the size of White's unblinking eye.

Where, then, did the music come from? Had Pink ordered her Pearl to sing? No – the sound was grainy and filtered, crackling with static.

With slow bewilderment, Yellow looked to the ramshackle cluster of humans on the slope of the beach gathered round a box, some transmitter of some sort, which thumped and blurred music from its speaker. A replacement Pearl? Did none of the human variants serve some similar function? 

Evidently not, though to Yellow's great discomfort, she noticed that all the humans on the beach were singing - together. Was it some prelude to fusion, then? Disturbed but unwilling to look away, Yellow stared.

It was becoming increasingly apparent to Yellow that humans were a lawless species. Little wonder that they had taken several generations to acquiesce readily to the control and direction of gems in Pink's zoo; they were a species so excessively given to spontaneity that it was a wonder that they had managed to create any halfway-developed society amidst all the resources they wasted. Yellow knew this, could almost understand Pink's fondness for the fleeting, fleshbound creatures whose expressive, reckless youthfulness must have felt so familiar to her, but even so, the sheer extent of their frivolity occasionally took her off guard.

What in the stars was the purpose of this music? Which great leader's heart did it lighten, to ease the passing of judgements? To whom was it sung? Was there a purpose at all? Yellow could not fathom such a stark waste of time, and flagrant skirting of propriety. Did the humans not know that singing and dancing were the province of fusion?

But of course, Yellow thought, rather more rationally, they were organic, their bodies could not fuse. Perhaps this song had little other purpose than to encourage the humans not to be afraid of gems that had encroached on their habitat. Yet, even as she peered at them, she could not discern any attempt to divide themselves by hierarchy as they mingled on the beach, consuming organic matter communally. Obviously it was simply harder to perceive, unlike the simple, efficient system of colour-coded gems. 

The Earth music was a compound of simple, scratchy sounds, some odd mixture that sounded to Yellow's ear like a backfiring engine and the thump of Diamond feet on ground, interspersed with the electronic whine of synthetically enhanced voices, like peridots on communicators, mashed together. The lyrics were difficult to pick out from a distance, but Yellow heard repeated references to simple organic functions, the sea, the sky, rain and sun. 

It did not make much sense to her, peculiar as it was, but the more Yellow strained to listen the more she found herself picking up the patterns repeating within the music, if it could be called that when not sung from gem throats. Its predictability was absurdly soothing. She could not predict their reception on Homeworld - but she could decipher human music. Abruptly, it struck her as laughable.

What a foolish, backwards little planet, where music was sung but not for Diamonds, where law was ignored and creatures mingled together irregardless of function, of deadlines. Yes, Yellow could almost understand why Pink loved this planet and its denizens enough to pretend to die for it; like her, it was determined to waste its own time, to hurtle on to the inevitability of immortal patience running out. They would have destroyed Earth, eventually, had the Cluster done its job. 

Yet, against all odds, it had survived, as Pink had survived. She had not expected either. Yellow tipped her head back to find Homeworld's star in the sky, her gaze drawn to it like a magnet. Perhaps this strange curve of probability would continue to defy her expectations of what she'd find on Homeworld with the warped Pink and the stain of so immense a mistake too. Perhaps it would continue on to subvert the low plunge of gemkind, perhaps it heralded change of the better sort. 

Yellow snorted. And perhaps White Diamond would greet them with smiles and sweetness when they inevitably found a way to return, late, ship-less, and in grave embarrassment; it seemed as likely.

It had been foolish, wasted music, but as the song on the beach faded and the humans erupted into cheers, Yellow found it left her with the smallest speck of hope. Foolish, wasted hope, but hope, nonetheless.


	75. power cut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 75\. My best attempt at canon Pink and Yellow Diamond. What it says on the tin. For anon on tumblr.

When, right in the middle of a promising report on a new moon ripe for colonisation, her screen died, Yellow scowled. Shadows fell suddenly as the lights overhead clicked off. Pink, sat at her elbow and providing more distraction than aid, gasped and reached tentatively for the darkened screen, stopping short to peer up at long hollow strips ribbing the ceiling that should have been shining with light. Her face crumpled with confusion.   
"What happened?" Pink asked, poking at the screen. Yellow let her have it, rising instead to cross to the window and manually unfurling the long screen that hid the towering spires of Homeworld from view.   
"Power cut," Yellow muttered, surveying with displeasure the dim blackness which cloaked every spire, the tops of which normally blazed with light to rival the stars. The window was too thick to allow noise to penetrate into the sanctum of Yellow's office, but she saw the distant firefly glow of individual gems in a panic between the looming and newly unfamiliar stacks. At that moment, the emergency lighting went on, though it was as erratic as a pulsing heart.   
Yellow pursed her lips. From the look of it, half the sector's power had been blown; she could just make out easy glow of the rest of Yellow District arching against the skyline, brilliant as the criss-cross belts of nebulae and asteroid fields which quartered Homeworld's sky.  
"Why did it –" Pink's question died in her throat at the sight of dark Homeworld, and she stepped up the window in silent awe, pressing her nose against the window until she left smudgy prints on its surface.  
It occurred to Yellow that Pink, being a young gem, had likely never seen anything like it before. To her, Homeworld had always been as glittering and bright as the cool glimmer of silver knives through black smoke, inscrutable and unstoppable. With that realisation came a fleck of wariness in Yellow's own gem – she had never been the best at calming Pink's moods, instead their emotions seem to flare off against one another's like a spark to tinder, culminating in furious, explosive rows. Blue was better at it, the indulgence that Pink seemed to need but Yellow saw little point in. She had no desire for an argument today.  
"It happens sometimes," Yellow said, taking care to keep her voice level and unaffected, "Less often than it used to."  
Pink craned her head to peer at the thick, milky white cords like worms writhing down from the central skull of White's vast ship, all of which thrummed and throbbed in time with White's thoughts, her heart. They were seething with agitation; Pink worried at her lip.  
"Did White do it?" she asked perceptively, and Yellow glanced down at her. She had both arms resting against the glass, and was leaning up on her tiptoes to see out a window made to a scale impossibly beyond hers.  
Yellow had no reason to lie. "Possibly," she said, "or it could have been Blue, or simply a faulty generator. The power will be back on soon."  
"She'll be angry with me," said Pink.  
"Why?"  
Pink shrugged one shoulder, the picture of careless insouciance, and Yellow had to smile, a quick and hidden thing. Pink's rebelliousness was often troublesome and difficult to bear, but a small, hastily stifled part of Yellow found in her chafing against the overbearing nature of the eldest Diamond a reminder of her own youth. She was not without sympathy for Pink's plight, but the fact of the matter remained that Pink was governed precisely because she needed governance - she was too young and inexperienced to strike out on her own just yet. In time, she would, but not yet.  
"Perhaps she would have less cause for anger if you stopped escaping your room when she sends you there," Yellow suggested tartly, knowing Pink had done exactly that before she had appeared in Yellow's office earlier.  
Pink rolled her eyes. "I'm not fresh out of the ground any more," she said with more than a hint of petulance which promptly undermined her point, "It's not fair."  
"Life isn't," said Yellow, and Pink scowled at her for her unhelpfulness.   
"If only I had a colony of my own-" Pink began, but Yellow cut her off with an explosive sigh, striding away from the window and dropping back into her chair.  
"This again?" she demanded, wearily.   
Pink's cheeks flushed. "Yes," she snapped, "this again! I should have a colony!"  
"When you are ready for one, and not before," Yellow countered.  
Pink rounded on her, her fists clenched tightly, but she had barely begun to speak when she was interrupted by the low grinding of gears and sudden blaze of light as the district generator came on and the power returned. Blinking in the bright lights, Pink rushed to the window, argument forgotten in her excitement. She gasped and gazed at the ordinary sight of Homeworld fully lit, her eyes round. Pleased by both the power's return and Pink's concession, Yellow cast an eye towards the window, where the steady burn of the saffron lights made the thinner edges of Pink's hair glow burnt orange.   
"There we go," Yellow said. She reached for her screen, barely had she lifted it when a flurry of notifications hit - apologies and excuses for the cut, no doubt. She dismissed most of them, and winced.   
"What?" asked Pink, turning towards her.  
"White wants you," Yellow said, flicking the screen up to display the message. "At your earliest convenience."   
Even through the distance of a dispassionate message, the ice in the words was obvious. Pink and Yellow both grimaced, and for a moment, she caught Yellow's eyes and Yellow had to forcibly quash the flare of amused kinship White's evidently disgruntled message had provoked. Yellow cleared her throat and said instead, "You had best be on your way, then. She doesn't like being kept waiting."  
"Well I know," Pink muttered, but she left with a skip in her step, and Yellow did not doubt that White would be waiting a while longer for Pink to materialise. Although Yellow knew that it meant she would be blamed for Pink's delay, she allowed herself a small smile as she turned back to her reports. There would be no changing Pink before she was ready, and privately, Yellow struggled to mind too much.


End file.
